Nirbhaya Case Convict Akshay Singh Moves Delhi Court Seeking Stay On February 1 Execution

New Delhi:

Two days before the four Nirbhaya case convicts are to be hanged, one of them has petitioned a Delhi court to put the execution on hold.

This is the latest in a series of petitions filed by the convicts in their attempt to put off their death sentence.

Akshay Singh has requested the Patiala House court in Delhi for a stay on the February 1 hanging arguing that the convicts still have legal options to pursue.

His curative petition challenging his death sentence will be heard by the Supreme Court later today.

Last night, another convict, Vinay Sharma, filed a mercy petition before the President, with his lawyer claiming that he “died several times in prison” while judicial proceedings were on.

“I am submitting this mercy petition with the hope that your good self will listen to my story when nobody did. This is the last chance I have to tell how the terrible circumstances of that fateful day in December 2012 changed my life forever… I want to tell you all this, so that you can decide whether death is the only punishment I deserve,” news agency PTI quoted Vinay Sharma as stating in the petition.

The petitions mean that the execution may not take place at 6 am on Saturday morning, as scheduled.

Akshay Singh’s curative petition will be heard by the judges in their chambers, not in open court. Even if the plea is rejected, he will have the option of sending a mercy petition to President Ram Nath Kovind.

Yesterday, the court dismissed the petition of convict Mukesh Singh, who had alleged “non-application of mind” by President Kovind while rejecting his mercy plea.

The four were originally scheduled to be hanged on January 22.

They were among the six men arrested for the horrific gang-rape and killing in 2012 of the young woman who came to be known as Nirbhaya. The 23-year-old was raped for hours, tortured with an iron rod and thrown off a moving bus on December 16, 2012. She died a fortnight later amid angry protests on streets nationwide.

While one of the convicts died in prison and another was released after three years in a reform home. The other four, sentenced to death, have been filing multiple petitions to stall their hanging.

“These petitions before the court and the President are just tactics to delay the execution. They are doing it just to waste time. All the convicts must be executed on February 1,” said Nirbhaya’s mother.

Last week, the government had asked the Supreme Court to change guidelines related to death row cases so that convicts can’t keep delaying the sentence by exploiting legal options.