Nirbhaya Convicts to be Hanged on 20th March 2020

Four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case have got the death penalty. They will be hanged on 20th March 2020, at 5:30 am. This is the fourth and hopefully the last death warrant issued by a Delhi court for the case in which a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi was raped and murdered in the national capital eight years ago.

The death warrant has been issued by the court a day after the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition filed by one of the convicts, Pawan Gupta, who is the last of the four death row convicts, who have applied for the mercy. Now, with the President’s rejection, all the four convicts had exhausted all their legal options for relief from the death sentence. 

Now an Additional Sessions Judge had fixed March 20 as the new date for the execution, after the Delhi government informed the court that the convicts have exhausted all their legal options. The lawyer for the four death row convicts has also accepted in the court that there was no legal impediment for the court in proceeding to fix the new date of execution.

The Tihar Jail authorities, where the convicts are lodged, had approached the court with the fresh date of execution.

Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi, who has been fighting the legal battle said, “I hope this is the final date and they would be hanged on March 20. While dying Nirbhaya asked to ensure they get such punishment that such crime is not repeated ever”.

Earlier this week, the Patiala House court had refused to hold the execution of the four convicts, who were to be hanged at 6 am on Tuesday this week.

On the same day, the court dismissed an application to pass a stay order in the execution of Mukesh Singh, 32, Akshay Thakur, 31, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Pawan Gupta, 25, who had filed multiple petitions challenging their death sentence so far. 

The four convicts, along with two others had gang-raped the young medical student and tortured her with an iron rod on the night of 16th December 2012. 13 days later she died at a hospital in Singapore.

Among the attacker, one was a minor just short of 18 years, when the crime was committed therefore he was released after he spent three years at a reform home. The main accused in the case Ram Singh was found hanging inside his cell in Tihar jail.

The brutality of the attack had outraged the entire nation bringing thousands of people on the streets in protest, which forced the government to make key changes in the law and security system of the country.