New Delhi: A Delhi court Friday issued fresh death warrants against the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case. They will now be hanged at 6 am on February 1.
Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora gave the verdict while hearing a plea by one of the four death row convicts, Mukesh Kumar Singh. he had sought postponement of the date of his execution, which was scheduled for January 22.
Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind rejected a mercy plea filed by Mukesh mere hours after it was forwarded to him by the Union Home Ministry.
Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail at 7 am on January 22, the trial court judge had declared last week, signing a death warrant seven years after a young medical student was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured and killed.
Five days before the scheduled execution, Tihar officials on Thursday had asked for a new date, saying the executions could not take place till after all mercy pleas were settled.
The three other convicts are yet to file their respective mercy petitions, following the rejection of which a convict is given a 14-day period of reprieve before the execution.
The fresh death warrant is dated to exactly 14 days from Friday, in accordance with the law.
Nirbhaya’s mother, fearing more delay in the execution of the four men, said she had been going to many courts for years but wanted justice now. “If they have rights, we too have the right to justice for our daughter who was killed seven years ago,” she said.
