Can Nirbhaya Convicts Be Hanged On Feb 1st? Yes, 3 Of Them, Says Public Prosecutor

As the suspense continues over the February 1st execution of the Nirbhaya convicts, the public prosecutor on Friday said that three of the death row convicts could be hanged on Saturday. However, the convicts’ lawyer urged the court to adjourn matter "sine die" (with no appointed date for resumption). According to news agency ANI, Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed appearing for Tihar Jail said that only one convict's (Vinay Sharma) mercy plea is pending and that others can be hanged. He added that there is no illegality in it. Meanwhile, Pawan Gupta, a convict in the case, filed a review petition before the Supreme Court challenging top court’s earlier order of dismissal of his juvenile plea.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed the curative petition of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the convicts in Delhi 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case. The development comes a day after the top court rejected the plea of Mukesh Kumar Singh thereby ending all legal remedies for him. On Wednesday, another Nirbhaya convict Vinay Kumar Sharma had also filed mercy petition before the President of India. A Delhi court has issued black warrnat for the hanging of the four death-row convicts - Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur - on February 1. However, they are unlikely to be hanged on that day as three of the four convicts are yet to exhaust their options to challenge the death sentence.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea filed by Nirbhaya convict Mukesh Singh against the rejection of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind. While Vinay only has the mercy petition option left, the two other convicts Akshay and Pawan still have options of both mercy pleas and curative petitions.

A convict facing death sentence gets 14 days to meet family, put his affairs in order and for judicial review after the rejection of mercy plea by the President. Vinay, Mukesh, Pawan and Akshay have been sentenced to death for brutally raping and killing a medical student in Delhi in 2012. Another convict, a minor, was sent to a correctional centre and has been released after he serving his sentence. The sixth accused hanged himself to death during the trial.

The 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 she was thrown out on the road. She was flown to a hospital in Singapore where she died.