Delhi Court issues death warrant to Nirbhaya's Rapists; to be hanged on January 22

Delhi judge on Tuesday issued a warrant to execute four men who were indulged in raping and torturing 23 year old physiotherapy student on a cold December night in 2012. The rapists shall be hanged till death on January 22 at 7 am, orders court.

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The black warrant and the execution of all four culprits will empower women and will strengthen the trust of people in the country's judicial system, says mother of the victim.

The black warrant formally called, 'the execution of a sentence of death,' however will be put on hold or cancelled if the convict files a mercy petition as a fundamental right to exercise.

The court has already given 14 days to the convicts to use their legal remedies which inculcate a curative petition to Supreme Court or a mercy plea to the President.

Guilty verdict had already been given by the trial court within a year of the young para-medical student's brutal gang-rape which provoked outrage at a national level and led to the first re-defining of the country's rape laws in years. But it was quite later that the high court confirmed the death penalty.

Supreme Court rejected the first set of appeals against the conviction in 2017.

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Judge Satish Kumar Arora issued the warrant on the request of the police and the victim's mother who had celebrated the top court's 2017 verdict rejecting an appeal against the death sentence as justice at last.

Victim's mother still waited for the four men to be sent to dungeons two years later. Her eyes filled up with tears when Judge Satish Kumar Arora postponed the case, symbolizing that he wanted to wait for the mercy petition filed by one of the four men to be decided first.

At Tuesday's hearing, he had heard the public prosecutor argue that warrant could have been issued prior to the exercise of legal options by convicts. The public prosecutor added, it was a mere tactic to delay the court's verdict.

After the December hearing, jail authorities had issued a notice to the convicts on December 18- Akshay, Vinay, Pawan and Mukesh- who are now on the death row for committing gang rape.

One of the six accused who were on the bus on which the woman was brutally raped got off lightly as he was not an adult. Another committed suicide in jail. The remnants are sentenced to death this time.

Three of them have filed a review petition in Supreme Court against their execution, which was rejected last year. As Tihar jail authority has started to prepare for their execution, the fourth convicted filed a review petition in Supreme Court which was rejected.


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