New Delhi:
Less than 72 hours from now, Delhi’s high-profile Tihar Jail is likely to hang the convicts of Nirbhaya gangrape and murder on the seventh anniversary of the heinous crime. Though there has been no official confirmation or denial form the jail authorities, the buzz is that the prison corridors are busy with preparations. A report by The Hindustan Times said that the Tihar Jail officials are silently preparing to hang the convicts. The report added that from ordering execution ropes to writing to other states for hangmen, Tihar Jail officials are readying for the crucial day.
News Nation had also reported that Nirbhaya gangrape and murder convicts will be hanged on December 16. The sources had told News Nation that the authorities are following the ‘due procedure.’ Pawan Gupta, one of the convicts in the December 16 case, was also shifted from Mandoli jail to high-profile Tihar Jail. The sources, however, had rejected that latest media reports about Buxar jail preparing the execution ropes for the December 16 convicts. The sources said that the reports about Buxar jail is untrue because the officials can’t issue such an order until the court has issued the ‘black warrant’. The sources also said that the ‘execution chamber’ located inside the jail No. 3 inside Tihar premises ‘is always ready’.
Another report says that as many as 15 ‘volunteers’ have applied to Tihar Jail to hang the Nirbhaya convicts. Two of these ‘volunteers’ are foreigners.
One of the accused Ram Singh had hanged himself in the jail and another, the juvenile, was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years' imprisonment in a reform facility. On July 9 last year, the apex court dismissed the pleas of three convicts -- Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24) and Vinay Sharma (25) -- seeking review of it 2017 verdict which upheld the capital punishment given to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case. The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (33), had not filed a review plea in the apex court.
Meanwhile, one of the four convicts, Akshay Kumar Singh, moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking review of its 2017 judgment handing down death penalty to all of them in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. The apex court, on July 9, 2018, had dismissed the review pleas filed by three other convicts in the case. Akshya, 31, who had not filed the review plea earlier with other three convicts, has now moved the apex court with the petition, his lawyer AP Singh said.
In his petition, Singh has said the quality of air and water in the national capital is leading to a reduction of life span. The plea goes on to say if that is the case, what is the purpose of the death penalty.
