Hopes shattered but will continue fight till convicts are hanged: Nirbhaya`s mother

NEW DELHI: Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi on Friday said that her family will continue the legal battle till her daughter's rapists are executed. ''The lawyer of the convicts, AP Singh has challenged me saying that the convicts will never be executed. I will continue my fight. The government will have to execute the convicts,'' a teary-eyed Asha Devi said after a Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants till further order.

Devi told reporters that the court's ruling has ''shattered her hopes" but she will continue her fight.

"These convicts have no right to live. We keep getting disappointed by the system. I will continue my fight till the convicts are hanged," she said.

Earlier, a Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case till further orders.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana passed the order on a plea by the convicts seeking a stay on their execution on Saturday, February 1.

The court also directed the Tihar Jail authorities not to execute the death warrants issued against the convicts. The execution was scheduled for Saturday at 6 am.

Commenting on the court order, Asha Devi said because of the loopholes in law the "criminals' lawyers had the audacity to challenge me in court that they will not be hanged".

The warrants for the execution of the death sentence against Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, Akshay Kumar and Mukesh Kumar Singh, were issued on January 17.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" was gangraped 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.