4 Delhi gang rape convicts hanged, 1st execution in rape case since 2004

This is the first time four people have been hanged simultaneously.

After the Supreme Court rejected the last petition by one of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case to stop their execution, they were hanged as scheduled at 5.30am on Friday at Tihar jail.

AP Singh, the lawyer of the convicts, had approached the Supreme Court to seek the late-night hearing. Three judges of the Supreme Court held a special sitting to hear the petition and rejected it.

“We are not inclined to entertain the plea,” the bench comprising Justice R Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AS Bopanna said.

AP Singh cited school certificates of Pawan Gupta to claim he was a juvenile in December 2012, when the crime was committed. But the judges told him that he had already made this argument and it had been rejected.

Singh then asked the court for a reprieve for the death row convicts that would not stretch for more than one to two days, according to news agency PTI.

Just enough time for Pawan Gupta to record his statement to the police in the FIR registered when he was assaulted in jail, Singh told the judges.

“We are of the opinion that there is no merit in the case,” Justice Bhanumati said, dictating the order after a 45-minute hearing, according to Live Law.

“The consistent view of this court is that scope for review of President’s decision in mercy petitions is very limited,” the bench ruled, according to PTI.

Three of the four convicts had also approached the Delhi High Court late on Thursday evening with a similar request to stop their execution. Justice Manmohan and Justice Sanjeev Narula heard AP Singh and other lawyers for close to 90 minutes but did not find any reason to suspend the death warrant.

AP Singh the said he would approach the top court before the four convicts were to be hanged, simultaneously at 5.30am.

AP Singh reached the top court’s official’s residence in central Delhi by 1.30am to request for a special hearing.

“We are seeking an urgent hearing and stay on the death warrant. We are filing the petition in the Supreme Court… The court is open and working,” he said while speaking to reporters.

Lawyers for the four convicts had been rushing in and out of courts through the day, right from the one presided by Delhi judge Dharmendra Rana to the Supreme Court’s six-judge bench.

Before the top court closed for the day, the six-judge bench led by Justice NV Ramana had rejected convict Pawan Gupta’s curative petition that claimed he was a juvenile when the crime was committed in December 2012.

Another bench comprising three judges then took up two other petitions filed by convict Mukesh Singh and rejected them.

Asha Devi, the mother of the 23-year-old woman, was confident that the last-minute appeals would be rejected by the Supreme Court.

She said while speaking to reporters that the convicts had already been given a lot of time and had managed to delay their execution.

“We are also going to the Supreme Court, it will be dismissed there too. Convicts will be hanged this morning,” she said before heading to the top court.

Officials of Tihar jail, where Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma will be hanged, along with hangman Pawan Jallad inspected the hanging courtyard late on Thursday before the execution.

They said the 10 pieces of rope brought from Bihar’s Buxar and tied to the beams at the gallows were also checked. They have been dipped in butter or wax by prisoners of Buxar Jail in a way that it does not decapitate convicts during the hanging.

The lever was also checked by the executioner by performing a dummy hanging using a sandbag. The execution process is expected to be complete before 6.30am, officials said.

This is the first time four people have been hanged simultaneously.