Nirbhaya case: No hanging of convicts on 22 January
নির্ভয়া মামলা : ২২ জানুয়ারি দোষীদের ফাঁসি হচ্ছে না

January 16: The four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case will not be hanged on January 22 as scheduled with the Delhi government on Wednesday telling the High Court that the execution has to be postponed in view of the pendency of a mercy petition by one of them.

The convicts, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta, are to be hanged at 7 am on January 22, a Delhi court declared last week, putting out a death warrant in the seven-year-old case. Mukesh Singh filed a mercy petition on Tuesday. Even if it is rejected by the President of India, a convict has to be given 14 days before execution.

In a hearing before the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, the counsel for the Delhi government and the MHA informed the court that according to the Tihar Prison Manual rules and previous Supreme Court orders, if there is a pending mercy petition, there is an automatic stay on the execution of the death penalty.

On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped and tortured on a moving bus before being dumped on a road in south Delhi. The woman, who came to be known as “Nirbhaya”, died on December 29 in a Singapore hospital.