Nirbhaya Case: Death execution dates revised, Will Now Hang On Feb 1 At 6 am, Says Delhi Court

Today, hours after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected a mercy petition filed by Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts a new date has been issued revising the death execution of the four convicts for the heinous crime.

The four men will now be executed at 6 am on February 1, who are convicted of the gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old paramedic student medical student in Delhi in 2012, Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora said today.

The new death warrants are dated to exactly 14 days from today, in accordance with a law that states convicts to be executed must have a reprieve from the time their mercy plea is turned down.

Last week the same trial court judge had declared Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Kumar Singh, and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail on January. However, Tihar officials on Thursday, five days before, the scheduled execution, asked for a new date, saying the executions could not take place till after all mercy pleas were settled.

The petition had been forwarded to the President via the Home Ministry late Thursday night and was rejected this afternoon. Nirbhaya’s mother, Asha Devi, had made a public appeal to the President to summarily reject the petition.

The dates can be prolonged ahead as the three other convicts too have yet to file their respective mercy petitions, which they may do at any time prior to their execution. Therefore, each time such a petition is filed and rejected, that 14-day period will be observed, and thereby potentially prolonging the execution.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.