President rejects mercy plea of Nirbhaya convict

Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case, had submitted a mercy plea to the President of India. On Friday, the President rejected the plea confirming death sentence of all the four accused in the Nirbhaya case. The new date for execution of the convicts has been finalised for 1 February at 6am.

A Delhi court had executed the four convicts Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta and given them a death sentence. Two of the convicts filed for a mercy plea at the Supreme Court of India which was rejected last week. Mukesh Singh then submitted a mercy plea to the President of India. The plea that the convicts sent to the Delhi government were rejected by officials already. The other three convicts are also expected to file a mercy plea any time to the President.

There seems to be an unseemly hurry to hang them before the Delhi elections.Don’t know how many mercy petitions in the recent past have been rejected within a week of the Home Ministry sending its opinion to the President. #Nirbhaya- Sumanth Raman, Journalist.

Officials at the Tihar jail, where the convicts will be hanged, had requested the government to change earlier execution date of 22 January till all the mercy pleas were settled. “BREAKING: President rejects Nirbhaya convict Mukesh’s mercy petition. Final recourse exhausted. The other three haven’t filed mercy petitions (yet)”, tweeted journalist Shiv Aroor.

Meanwhile, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi criticised the government for delaying the execution process. She stated that in spite of seven long years since the incident happened, their daughter has not got justice.