Days before hanging, convict Mukesh claims of ill-treatment in Jail including sexual assault and also the murder of co-convict Ram Singh.
New Delhi| Lawyer Anjana Prakash told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that Nirbhaya case convict Mukesh Singh was sexually abused in Tihar Jail, during a hearing seeking judicial review of the rejection of his mercy petition by the President.
“Courts only sentenced me to death. Was I sentenced to be raped?” the senior lawyer asked the court on his behalf and claimed that several supervening circumstances, including his illegal solitary confinement, were ignored when the mercy petition was rejected.
The lawyer also claimed that Mukesh Singh’s co-convict Ram Singh in 2012 gang-rape and murder case was murdered in jail but the case was closed as suicide. Ram Singh had been found hanging in his cell in March 2013.
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“I haven’t been able to sleep in 5 years. When I manage to sleep, I dream of death and beating,” the lawyer said on Mukesh Singh’s behalf, submitting to the three-judge bench led by Justice R Banumathi that he has been kept in solitary confinement against the norms. Rules state that a death row inmate will be shifted to solitary confinement after his or her mercy petition gets rejected.
Last week, the apex court rejected convict Pawan Kumar petition, challenging the Delhi High Court order which had dismissed his claim of being a juvenile at the time of the commission of the offence.
Pawan Kumar’s advocate AP Singh had contended that he was a minor at the time of the offence as per his school-leaving certificate.
Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar are to hang on Saturday at 6 am. Chief Justice SA Bobde had on Monday asked that Mukesh’s petition be listed “on top priority” because of the execution date.
Last-minute petitions by the convicts have been widely seen as desperate attempts to stall their hanging.
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