A Delhi court today issued a fresh death warrant against the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case. The four will now hang on March 20 at 5.30 am.
This is the fourth death warrant to be issued by the court in the case.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana of Patiala Court ordered, “It is hereby directed that convicts will now be hanged by neck till death on March 20 at 5.30 am.”
The Tihar jail authorities had on Wednesday moved court seeking fresh death warrant soon after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy plea of Pawan Gupta, the last of the four convicts.
It had informed the court that all four convicts had exhausted all legal and constitutional remedies available to them and none of the petitions is pending before any court or constitutional authority.
The trial court had earlier issued a death warrant for execution for March 3 at 6 am for Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).
Before this, the convicts were slated to be hanged on January 22. The Patiala House Court had moved the date of hanging from January 22 to February 1 after the President rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh on January 17.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ”Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile were named as accused.
The trial of the five men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.
The juvenile was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He, when released, was 20 years old.
The trial of the four adults began in a special fast-track court in March 2013 and they were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.