Last Updated on March 20, 2020, 2:15 AM AST by Anthony Morris
India, woke up to a dawn of justice today amid a lockdown as a preventive measure to control the spread of COVID-19.
Justice came in the form of execution of four convicts by hanging till death. The said men were convicted in the Nirbhaya Case.
Nirbhaya case was a case in which a 23-year-old medical student was mercilessly gang-raped and murdered by these four convicts in a moving bus back in December 2012 in Delhi. The victim in the case came to be known as Nirbhaya, who had died subsequently due to her injuries after the incident.
The Supreme Court of India rejected a last-minute plea filed by the convicts for the review of the death sentence after it conducted a midnight hearing for the case. A death sentence was awarded to the accused men as the case was considered to be a rarest of rare case by the court.
The four convicted men namely, Akshay Kumar Singh, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, were hanged till death at Delhi’s Tihar Jail at 5:30 am.
The DG of the Tihar Jail has said that the bodies of the convicts, after post mortem examination, would be handed over to their families.
Meanwhile, The bodies of the convicts have been taken to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital where Dr BN Mishra would lead a five-member panel which will conduct the autopsies on the bodies. The autopsies will also be video-graphed. After that, the bodies will be handed over to the families of the convicts.
The chief of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma Reacting to the hangings of the Nirbhaya convicts, said that the faith in the judicial system had been restored and the doubts regarding the justice system that have been lingering in the minds have cleared.
She added that she hopes that now Nirbhaya will finally rest in peace as she has gotten justice after fighting a very long legal battle. Also, the Nirbhaya case has brought the loopholes in the legal system forward.
The mandatory lockdown which had been imposed during the execution has now been lifted at the Tihar Jail.
The Tamil Nadu Special Police is in charge of security at the Tihar Jail, and it is conducting a flag march within the prison to ensure order in prison.
Former cricketer and a member of parliament for BJP, Gautam Gambhir said that finally the convicts had been hanged till death and the nation knows that the hanging has been done very late.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
