Dec 16 convicts’ execution: Tihar asks hangman to report 3 days ahead of execution

With four days to go for the execution of death sentence of the four convicts in the December 2012 gang-rape and murder case, Tihar Jail authorities on Sunday said

With four days to go for the execution of death sentence of the four convicts in the December 2012 gang-rape and murder case, Tihar Jail authorities on Sunday said they have asked the hangman to report three days ahead of the scheduled March 20 hanging.

HT Image

The four convicts in the case are to be hanged together at 5.30am on March 20, according to an order by a Delhi court earlier this month. The death row convicts are Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

The execution of their death warrants has been deferred thrice so far due to the time it took for them to exhaust their legal remedies. After the fresh death warrant was issued on March 5, Tihar Jail authorities wrote to their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh requesting for the service of hangman Pawan Jallad, a senior jail official said.

“Pawan Jallad, a hangman from Meerut, has been asked to report to Tihar Jail on March 17, three days ahead of the scheduled date of hanging,” said Sandeep Goel, director general (prisons).

According to jail authorities, dummy executions will be conducted after the arrival of Jallad. Health checkups of the convicts is being done once a day. They are also being counselled on regular basis, authorities said. Of the four convicts, Mukesh, Pawan and Vinay have had their last face-to-face meetings with their respective families. The authorities have written to the family of Akshay about the date for their final meeting before the scheduled execution.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern was gang-raped and assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died at a Singapore hospital a fortnight later. Six, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly killed himself in Tihar, days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.