The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the curative petition filed by Pawan Gupta, one of the convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case. Pawan is one of the four convicts on death row for the gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. The victim succumbed to fatal internal injuries on December 29 of the same year. In his plea, convict Pawan Gupta had claimed that his death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment claiming that he was a minor at the time of the incident. Pawan had first filed a review petition in the Supreme Court in December of 2017 along with co-convict Vinay Sharma. The apex court had dismissed the petitions in July of 2018. All the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case have also filed review and curative petitions in the Supreme Court. The four convicts are set to be hanged on March 20, at 5:30 am. Meanwhile, commenting on the development, Asha Devi, mother of the Delhi gangrape victim said the court has already given them so many opportunities and they have become habitual to bringing up something ahead of their conviction.
“Court gave them so many opportunities that they have become habituated of bringing something ahead of hanging and get it postponed. Now, our Courts are aware of their tactics. Nirbhaya will get justice tomorrow,” Asha Devi said.
Earlier on Wednesday, hangman Pawan Jallad performed the dummy execution of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case today.
The hangman had arrived at Tihar jail late on Tuesday. A total of nearly 7 dummy executions have so far been performed at the Tihar jail.
The four convicts in the 2012 case — Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma — were earlier scheduled to be hanged in January. The date was later postponed to February and then to March, this year.