Court has deferred the hangings of four convicts who were guilty of raping and murdering Nirbhaya in Delhi in 2012. All the convicts were to be hanged together tomorrow at 6 a.m. This is the third time that the deaths have been deferred for exhausting legal remedies.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed since the mercy petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the rapists was pending. In spite of stiff resistance from the victim’s side the court deferred the execution since Pawan Gupta filed a mercy petition before President of India.
The court however also reprimanded the convict’s lawyer for acting so late in filing the curative and mercy pleas. Pulling up the advocate the judge told A.P. Singh, the lawyer representing Pawan Gupta, “You are playing with fire, you should be cautious, one wrong move by anybody, and you know the consequences.”
Nirbhaya was assaulted and gang-raped while her boyfriend was mercilessly beaten on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi, by the convicts. Nirbhaya eventually succumbed to her injuries in a hospital in Singapore.
