New Delhi: Nirbhaya’s parents Thursday protested outside a trial court premises here against the delay in hanging of the four death row convicts for gang rape and murder of their daughter, while the condemned prisoners’ kin protested against the death sentence.
The protests were held after the court adjourned for Monday the hearing on the pleas seeking fresh warrants against the convicts.
“We too have some rights. The legal system is only thinking about the rights of the convicts,” Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said, while joining a protest being held by women rights activist Yogita Bhayana outside the courts premises.
The family members of the convicts, on the hand, held placards stating that “five people cannot be hanged for the death of one person”.
Devi had also sat on ‘dharna’ outside the Patiala House courts premises Wednesday demanding execution of the convicts without any further delay.
She further said, “There is no appeal pending in any court in the country… I appeal to the Supreme Court to issue the death warrant as this court (trial) is in no mood to issue one. We are losing hope”.
While raising slogans for hanging of the four convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) — Devi said: “We are waiting for justice. I assure rape victims that they will also get justice. But today I myself have lost hope.”
Bhayana said, “The people of this country are losing hope with every passing day. When will convicts be hanged?”
Convict Pawan Gupta’s sister demanded that her brother should not be hanged.
“He is innocent. Five deaths for one death is not justified. We want the death penalty to be abolished. There should be no politics on this case,” she said.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
(PTI)
