Home Ministry Sends Nirbhaya Convict’s Mercy Petition to President, Recommends Rejection

Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, had filed the mercy petition a few days ago.

New Delhi: The Union Home Ministry on Friday forwarded to President Ram Nath Kovind the mercy petition of one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape case, recommending its rejection, officials said.

Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, had filed the mercy petition a few days ago.

“The Home Ministry has forwarded the mercy petition of Mukesh Singh to the President. The ministry has reiterated the recommendation of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi for its rejection,” the official said.

The Delhi LG had sent the mercy petition of Mukesh to the Home Ministry on Thursday, a day after the Delhi government recommended its rejection.

The four convicts — Mukesh Singh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) were to be hanged on January 22 at 7am in Tihar Jail, seven years after a medical student was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured and killed in December 2012. A Delhi court had issued their death warrants on January 7.

However, the Delhi government had informed the high court during a hearing that execution of the convicts will not take place on January 22 as a mercy plea has been filed by Mukesh.

If the petition is rejected, the convicts will be given a mandatory 14-day reprieve before the execution is carried out.

Ruing the delay, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said the family had been running from pillar to post for seven years now but to no avail. “Till now, I never talked about politics. But now I want to say that those people who held protests on the streets in 2012 are playing with my daughter’s death for political gains,” she said.