'Thanks to judiciary' posters pasted outside Tihar Jail as Nirbhaya convicts hanged

"Thanks to judiciary" and "the morning of justice" posters surfaced outside the Tihar Jail premises in the wee hours of Friday (March 20, 2020).

New Delhi: Just minutes ahead of the hanging of four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case at Delhi’s Tihar Central Jail, a handful of posters reading "thanks to judiciary" and "the morning of justice" surfaced outside the Tihar Jail premises in the wee hours of Friday (March 20, 2020).

Yogita Bhayana, a social activist associated with the case since its beginning, said, "The fight we started years ago is now ending. This will give a message to the world that such acts should not be committed."

Bhayana, along with other activists, held posters with phrases like "judgement day" and "Nirbhaya got justice, now every daughter should get it" written on them. "This is a big day in the history of the nation," Bhayana added.

Nearly seven and half years after a young medical student ‘Nirbhaya’ was gang-raped and tortured on a moving bus in Delhi, four - Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma - of her killers were hanged at 5.30 am on Friday (March 20, 2020).

Confirming the development, Tihar Director General Sandeep Goel said, “All four convicts (2012 Delhi gang-rape case) were hanged at 5:30 am.’’ 

The four convicts were declared dead by the Jail doctor 30 minutes after hanging.  As per protocol, bodies of convicts who are executed are kept hanging for 30 minutes before being lowered. The bodies of the four Nirbhaya convicts were lowered and checked by a doctor who declared all the four dead. The bodies will now be sent for post-mortem.

In her first reaction, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said, “Finally they have been hanged, it was a long struggle. Today we got justice, this day is dedicated to the daughters of the country. I thank the judiciary and the government.”

''Our daughter is no more and won't return. We started this fight after she left us, this struggle was for her but we will continue this fight in future for our daughters. I hugged my daughter's picture & said 'finally you got justice'" she added. 

Asha Devi also flashed a victory sign after the four convicts were hanged at Delhi's Tihar Jail. As the news broke out, people celebrated and distributed sweets outside Tihar jail where four 2012 Delhi gang-rape case convicts were hanged at 5:30 am today.

The hanging took place less a few hours after the Supreme Court dismissed their final petition. In the hours before that, the convicts had petitioned the Delhi High Court, where their lawyer cited coronavirus for the lack of proper documents with the hurriedly filed appeal.

A third court had already declared that they had run out of all legal options of stopping their execution.

All four convicts - Akshay Thakur, 31, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Mukesh Singh, 32, - were hanged at Tihar Jail in Delhi, where they had spent the last few hours in isolation. This is the first time in the history of India that four convicts were hanged at the same time.

They refused to eat and were up all night, said officials. The entire jail was on lockdown through the night, and officials said, no prisoner in Asia's largest jail could sleep a wink.

The four filed multiple petitions over the past few months, managing to stall their execution thrice at the eleventh hour. "Send them to the India-Pakistan border, send them to Doklam, but don't hang them," pleaded the lawyer of one of the convicts Akshay Thakur.

Akshay's wife, who sought a divorce saying she did not want to be a widow, appeared to faint outside a court where the judge ruled that the convicts had reached the end of the road.

Several "dummy executions" had been carried out by the hangman, Pawan Jallad as petitions stalled the execution repeatedly.