A file photo of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case
Tihar Jail authorities on Sunday morning carried out a dummy drill in the lead-up to the hangings of four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. As part of the drill, four dummies with approximately the same body weights as the Mukesh Kumar, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta, were hanged from the ropes on the gallows. The dummies comprised stones and sand stuffed in gunny sacks, jail authorities told India TV News.
It is further learnt that the same ropes that were used in the morning’s drill will be employed to hang the four convicts on Jan 22, finalised as the date of hanging. Notably, it is perhaps the first time that such mock hangings have been carried out in the lead-up to an execution, authorities pointed out.
Tihar authorities, however, noted that the curative petitions of two of the four convicts were pending before the Supreme Court. A five-judge bench at SC will hear the curative petitions filed by Mukesh Kumar and Vinay Sharma on Tuesday. Heard in-chamber by the judges, curative petitions are the final legal remedies available to convicts, especially to the ones who have been awarded the death penalty.
A Delhi court had on Tuesday issued death warrants against the four convicts and ordered that they be hanged at 7 AM at Tihar Jail on Jan 22.
A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29 the same year at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Also watch: Two Nirbhaya convicts file curative petition ahead of January 22 execution
