The date is set. The four convicts in the Delhi gang-rape and murder case will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am at Delhi’s Tihar jail’s cell 3. Seven years after they unleashed brutality against a 23-year-old student, their death will bring closure to her family.
“My daughter will get justice,” said Nirbhaya’s mother after a Delhi court pronounced the judgment on Tuesday.
Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora issued death warrants to Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta. The Supreme Court had already rejected Akshay Singh’s review plea in December 2019.
The 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped by six men in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 and dumped her on the road to die. The prime accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail in March 2013. Another accused, who was a minor at the time, was released in December 2015 after three years at a reform facility under the Juvenile Justice Act.
The convicts have been kept in different cells and monitored through CCTV. They will be allowed a last meeting with a family member.
The convicts’ lawyer AP Singh said that they will file a curative petition in the top court. He alleged that the probe was biased. The convicts also have the option of submitting a mercy petition before the President of India.
Preps on
The four men are likely to be hanged simultaneously and reports suggest that a new gallows frame is being readied for this purpose. Tihar, Asia’s largest prison, will be conducting dummy execution in the coming days, jail officials said. The dummy, which will be dropped between 1.8m and 2.4m, will be a sack of sand weighing 1.5 times the weight of the convicts.
At the time of the dummy execution, a PWD executive engineer, superintendent and other jail officials will be present. Pawan Jallad, who comes from a family of hangmen in Meerut, will do the job.
He said executing those who were involved in the horrific crime will bring “great relief” to him, Nirbhaya’s parents and everybody else.
Special ropes for the execution have been brought from a jail in Bihar’s Buxar district.
According to Buxar Jail Superintendent Vijay Kumar Arora, the Buxar Jail has a long tradition of manufacturing such ropes. “The ropes are strong, but have a short shelf-life as these are made of unprocessed cotton,” he told news agencies.
Execution
In India, “long drop” method is used for hanging, in which the height of the fall once the trapdoor is opened, is calculated in such a way that it is long enough to break the neck, ensuring quick death.
This is different from the old “short drop” method, where the subject usually dies due to strangulation by the tightening of the noose, which makes the death slow and painful.
The length of the rope used will be inversely proportional to the weight of the convict. The rope will be specially treated with butter or wax to ensure that the perfect amount of pressure falls on the right areas on the neck. The convict’s face will be covered with a black cloth when he is brought to the gallows, and his both hands tied behind.
The convict’s legs will be tied before the execution, before the noose is adjusted around his neck. As the hangman pulls the lever, the trapdoor opens and the convict will be subjected to a free fall, before the rope tightens and breaks the neck.
The convicts will be hanged till they are dead.
Previous hangings
Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, was the first person to be hanged in independent India. According to a report by Project 39A, a legal research organisation, 162 death sentences were imposed by trial courts in 2018, the highest in a calendar year since 2000. However, the Supreme Court commuted 11 out of the 12 death sentence cases it had decided in 2018 to life imprisonment.
Dhanonjoy Chatterjee, Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon are the four persons executed since 2000. Dhananjoy Chatterjee was awarded death for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl, while the other three were executed on terrorism charges.
Afzal Guru was hanged on February 9, 2013 at Tihar jail for his connection with the 2001 Parliament attack. Ajmal Kasab was executed on November 21, 2013 for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, while Yakub Memon was convicted of 1993 Mumbai bombings. Memon was arrested in 1994, and was hanged in 2015.
Even though the Supreme Court had said that the death penalty will be awarded only in the rarest of the rarest cases, many argue that the archaic method should be abolished, considering the inhuman aspects of the punishment. International human rights organisation, Amnesty International had earlier said that “the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.