New Delhi, February 14: The parents of ‘Nirbhaya’, the 23-year-old paramedic student who was gang-raped and murdered in December 2012, has requested a Delhi court to fast-track the procedure to hang all four convicts. Delhi’s Patiala House Court will hear the petition on March 2.
In July last year, the Supreme Court confirmed that the four men responsible will be hanged. The court, which had upheld the death sentence for the men in May last year, turned down a petition from the convicts that they be given life term. The convicts are Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh.
Another convicts, Ram Singh, had hanged himself in the jail and another, a juvenile, was given the maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment in a reform facility. He was released after serving his sentence.
In December, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking directions for immediate execution of the four death row convicts. “You want us to go around Delhi and execute these people. What kind of prayer you are making?” the court had told the petitioner. “You are making the court a joke,” it said.
The student was raped on the intervening night of December 16 and 17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six people. She was violated with an iron rod when she protested. Her friend was beaten severely, and both were thrown out of the bus at a secluded spot. She died 13 days later, on December 29, in Singapore.
The episode had triggered nationwide protests and led to major changes to laws on sexual crimes against women. It also put focus on the increasing number of crimes involving juveniles, bringing about change that would see them tried as adults under specific circumstances.
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