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‘Hope they will be executed on March 3’: Delhi gang rape case victim’s mother on fresh death warrant for convicts
A Delhi court ion Monday ordered that the four men, convicted of rape and murder of the 23-year-old paramedic, be hanged on March 3 at 6 am. This is the third black warrant issued by the court in this case.
The mother of the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim said on Monday her family had complete faith in the judiciary after a local court issued a fresh and the third death warrant for the four convicts in the case and hoped they would be executed on March 3.
Her reaction came minutes after the court ordered that the four men, convicted of rape and murder of her 23-year-old daughter, be hanged at 6am on March 3.
Judge Dharmender Rana was hearing the petition filed by the woman’s parents for issuance of a fresh death warrant. He had reserved his order after arguments by both sides earlier in the day.
“We have complete faith in the judiciary. But our real victory would be when the convicts are actually hanged,” she said.
However, she also said that she was not very happy because this was the third time that the death warrant had been issued.
“We have struggled so much. So I am satisfied that the death warrant has been issued finally. I hope they (convicts) will be executed on March 3,” she was also quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The parents had moved the court after Delhi High Court had given seven days to the convicts to exhaust their legal remedies and which ended on February 12.
Through their lawyer, they had told the court during the hearing last Thursday that patience of the society is being tested by this case.
The date of execution for Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) was first fixed for January 22 in Tihar jail, and then deferred for 6am on February 1 by a January 17 court order.
The physiotherapy intern was gang-raped and assaulted by six men on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a hospital in Singapore after she was airlifted for better medical care.
The six people - the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile - were named as accused.
The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.
He was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He was released when he turned 20 years old.
The four other convicts were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.
