Judge refuses to stop execution of 4 Delhi gangrape convicts, gets another plea

A Delhi court on Monday declined to stop the execution of four convicts in the 2012 gang rape and murder case. The four convicts are scheduled to be hanged at 6 tomorrow morning.

A court on January 7, 2020, issued the death warrant against four convicts and scheduled their execution on January 22. The execution date was postponed twice, first to February 1 and then to March 3 due to the convicts not having exhausted their remedies.

The central government had also moved the Delhi high court seeking permission to hang those convicts who have exhausted all their legal remedies separately.

The Centre argued that the law does not mandate that all death row convicts in a given case should be executed simultaneously.

In December 2012, five men and one juvenile had raped and brutalised a young para-medic student in a moving bus in Delhi leading to nationwide outrage. The victim later died from the injuries received. One of the accused committed suicide in Tihar jail during the trial while the juvenile accused was sent to a reform house and released three years later.

The four remaining accused were convicted and sentenced to death by the trial court in 2013. The conviction and sentence were confirmed by the Delhi high court in 2014 and the Supreme Court in May 2017.

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