‘We have no option but to accept the Supreme Court’s decision. We have been struggling for seven years,’ said Nibhaya’s mother
NEW DELHI| On Friday Nirbhaya’s parents requested to immediately hang four men convicted in the 2012 gang-rape and murder of their daughter. The request plea will be taken up by a Delhi court on December 18. The court said a hearing can’t take place before a petition by one of the convicts seeking a review of his death sentence is heard by the Supreme Court.
The parents had demanded that the convicts be hanged on December 16, seven years to the day the 23-year-old woman was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured with an iron rod and dumped by the roadside naked and bleeding. The victim died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
Six people were convicted. One convict who was a minor was jailed and later released while another convict Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar Jail during trial. The rest of the convicts have been sentenced to death. All four were produced via video conference in today’s hearing.
After one of the convicts, Vinay Sharma, withdrew his mercy request before the President last week, another convict, Akshay Singh, filed a review petition in the Supreme Court. The top court has already rejected similar petitions from Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma.
“We are not waiting for the convicts to file a curative petition but when now the review Petition is already pending in the Supreme Court, it will have to wait,” said the lower court, when a public prosecutor argued that a death warrant can be issued even when the legal process is on.
The convict’s review petition will be heard on Tuesday. The Supreme Court today said along with the review petition will also hear Nirbhaya’s mother in that hearing. Nirbhaya’s mother has appealed to the Supreme Court and the government to execute the convicts immediately.
“It has been two and a half years since the Supreme Court passed the order on their conviction and 18 months since their review petitions were dismissed. I have appealed to the court and government to hang them immediately,” Nirbhaya’s mother said.
“The court should hear the review petition but the petition should have been dismissed earlier. We have no option but to accept the Supreme Court’s decision. We have been struggling for seven years,” she added.
The convicts are in Delhi’s Tihar jail, where officials have reportedly started preparing for the hangings.
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