Nirbhaya convicts to be hanged on March 20
Our struggle will continue till time convicts are hanged. While dying Nirbhaya asked to ensure they get such punishment that such crime is not repeated ever and if there is any chance, I would like to see them die, says Asha Devi
A fresh date has been set for the hanging of the four accused in the brutal gang-rape and murder of paramedic student Nirbhaya seven years ago.
As per a death warrant issued by Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana at the Patiala Courts on Thursday, the four will be hanged on March 20, 2020 at 5.30am.
This is the fourth death warrant issued against convicts Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (26).
The Delhi government told the court earlier in the day that the convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies. The lawyer of the four convicts told the court that there was no legal impediment for court in proceeding to fix the date of execution.
Advocate AP Singh, who defended the convicts, however, pleaded for a stay of the black warrant. The lawyer said he would be exercising all possible legal options in attempt to commute the death penalty into life imprisonment.
“They have already suffered a lot. From the past seven years, they (convicts) have went through a harrowing experience,” he told the media outside the court.
“Media pressure has already killed them. They have been killed 4 times with 4 death warrants. They have been hanged 3 times,” he said.
“I am being harassed and threatened,” he said. “The court tells us I am playing with fire.”
On Wednesday, President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy plea of Pawan Gupta. Kovind had earlier rejected the mercy petitions of Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay.
Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi, who had been desperately chasing justice, hoped that March 20 to be the final date of hanging.
“Our struggle will continue till the time the convicts are hanged,” she said. “While dying Nirbhaya asked to ensure they get such punishment that such crime is not repeated ever,” Devi said.
“If there is any chance, I would like to see them die,” she added.
Nirbhaya’s mother added: “The morning of March 20 will be the morning of my life. If there is any chance, I would like to see them die.”
Asha Devi promised to not to quit until her daughter’s killers were dead. “The hanging has already been deferred thrice. I will be satisfied only when they are hanged by the noose.”
Her 23-year-old daughter was gang raped by six men in a moving bus in the most brutal manner possible. The rapists inserted rod into her and even butchered her intestine on December 16, 2012.
They then threw her and her man friend by the road side. By the time she was discovered by people on the road, her condition was beyond critical. The victim had several surgeries and finally breathed her last in a Singapore hospital on January 29, 2013, following severe complications.
The court had earlier fixed March 3 for the hanging. However, it was deferred for the third time in six weeks by a court in after convict Pawan Gupta filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court, which was rejected then and there.
The execution was first set for January 22. It was then postponed by the court to February 1. But on January 31, the court indefinitely postponed the hanging. On February 17, the court again issued fresh date for execution of death warrants for March 3 at 6am.
The 23-year-old student, whom the nation named Nirbhaya or the fearless, was gangraped by six men in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, in South Delhi. She died a fortnight later at a hospital in Singapore.
The six men were later arrested by the police. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case while the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.
During the course of proceedings today, Additional Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court that since all the legal remedies have been exhausted, a fresh black warrant can be issued against them.
Irfan Ahmed had told the court that since all the legal remedies have been exhausted, “there was no requirement of issuing any notice and the court may straightaway fix the execution date.”