The Supreme Court of India has agreed to hear review petition filed by Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the convicts of the brutal Nirbhaya gangrape. A three-judge Supreme Court bench will hear the review petition on December 17. Akshay Kumar Singh is currently lodged in Tihar Jail in New Delhi along with other convicts. All of them are awaiting death penalty. Meanwhile, Tihar Jail superintedent has written to Director General of Police of Uttar Pradesh requesting for hangmen. This has raised speculation that all convicts will soon be hanged.
Nirbhaya, a paramedical student was brutally gangraped in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died from her injuries but the brutal gang rape sparked a nationwide fury that led to a new legislation to deal with such heinous crimes. Of the six people convicted in the case, one was a minor, who was sent to a rehabilitation centre, and another, Ram Singh, committed suicide in the Tihar Jail.
Currently, Akshay Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh and Vinay Sharma are in Tihar jail. Nirbhaya case hit headlines again after gangrape and murder of Priyanka Reddy in Hyderabad. Priyanka was burnt by the rapists after gangrape. This reignited the discussion on why convicts in Nirbhaya Case have not yet been hung.
Uttar Pradesh's Additional Director General (Prisons) Anand Kumar told reporters on Thursday that the department is ready to provide the hangmen to Tihar Jail as per the request made by the jail administration.
"There are no hangmen with the Tihar Jail administration for those who were awarded capital punishment and are not left with any constitutional and legal remedy," Kumar said.
"As they were aware that we have two hangmen in UP, they asked us to provide them whenever needed on short notice," the ADG (Prisons) added.
The prisons department had received a request in this regard from the Tihar administration through fax on December 9. However there is no mention in the letter which death-row convincts are to be hung.
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