All four convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case hanged

mangaloretoday.com/yahoo

New DElhi, March 20, 2020: Four men convicted of the brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student in 2012 were hanged at 5:30 am on Friday morning as per the most recent death ’black’ warrant issued in their name. This is the first time the execution of four individuals was carried out at the same time at Delhi’s Tihar Jail complex. The four men were shifted to the prison’s jail number three in January this year.

While one of the convicts was transferred to Tihar earlier this year from Delhi’s Mandola jail, the other three have been lodged at the Tihar jail since 2013. Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, and Pawan Gupta have been on death row since 2013 when a fast track court sentenced them to death, holding that their actions amounted to an exceptionally brutal crime. These four men were among the six people arrested by Delhi Police in connection with the gang-rape of a woman on a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012.

The fifth man, Mukesh’s brother Ram Singh committed suicide in his Tihar jail cell in March 2013. The sixth person was identified as a juvenile and tried for the crime by the Juvenile Justice Board and sent to a correction home for three years.

After a judicial process that lasted for more than seven years, the Delhi High Court late on Thursday night dismissed a plea filed by one of the convicts seeking postponement of the executions. In a similar verdict, a six-judge bench of the Supreme Court also decided to stay the death warrants of Akshay, Mukesh, Vinay and Pawan.

"I hugged my daughter’s photo and said, ‘Today you got justice’.”

These were the words of Asha Devi, Nirbhaya’s mother who had struggled to get punishment for the four men (out of a total six – one juvenile has served his time, and another killed himself in jail) who brutally gang raped and tortured her 23-year-old daughter on 16 December 2012 in a moving bus.

Soon after the execution of the four convicts, who were hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail today at 5:30 am on Friday, 20 March, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said that justice was delayed, but not denied, and added that she and her husband would continue their fight for justice for India’s daughters.