Nirbhaya Case: Convict Mukesh Moves Delhi High Court, Claims Not In Delhi At Time Of Crime

Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, on Wednesday approached the Delhi high court challenging a trial court order dismissing his plea that he was not in the national capital when the crime took place on December 16, 2012. The high court will hear the plea later in the day.

The trial court had dismissed Mukesh's plea and had asked the Bar Council of India to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to his counsel. Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana had dismissed Singh's plea claiming he was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, and was not present in the city on December 16. The plea also alleged that Singh was tortured inside the Tihar jail.

The public prosecutor had told the court that Singh's plea was frivolous and a tactic to delay the scheduled hanging.

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On March 5, a trial court issued fresh warrants for hanging on March 20 at 5.30 am of all convicts in the case -- Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died after a fortnight. Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.