india

Updated: Mar 20, 2020 06:40 IST

Families will start teaching their sons and use the execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case as an example, the mother of the 23-year-old victim said on Friday.

The four men—Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma—were hanged simultaneously inside Tihar Jail number 3 for the gang-rape and murder of her daughter inside a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012.

The woman died at a hospital in Singapore on December 29.

Asha Devi hugged her sister and lawyer after the execution of the four men convicted in the case.

“Finally, the convicts have been hanged. This was a struggle of eight years. It was delayed but we got justice. Today, Nirbhaya got justice and girls of the country got justice. I want to thank everyone - the judiciary, the government, every citizen - for this,” she said while speaking to reporters after the hanging.

This will be a message for the entire country, she said. “Girls will now feel safer. After the execution, families will start teaching their sons and use the hanging as an example,” she said.

Also read: Timeline of a crime that horrified India

Asha Devi said they will continue to fight for justice for other girls so that they are not subjected to such crimes. She said she hugged the picture of her daughter as soon as she returned from the Supreme Court.

“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,” Asha Devi, who attended almost all hearings in the case all these years, said.

The four men were hanged after the Supreme Court rejected the last petition by one of the four convicts to stop their execution. AP Singh, the lawyer of the convicts, had approached the Supreme Court to seek the late-night hearing.

Also read: Fruit seller, gym trainer, driver: The 4 men hanged for 2012 Delhi rape

Three judges of the Supreme Court held a special sitting to hear the petition and rejected it. “We are not inclined to entertain the plea,” the bench comprising Justice R Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AS Bopanna said.

AP Singh cited school certificates of Pawan Gupta to claim he was a juvenile in December 2012, when the crime was committed. But the judges told him that he had already made this argument and it had been rejected.

“We are of the opinion that there is no merit in the case,” Justice Bhanumati said, dictating the order after a 45-minute hearing, according to Live Law.

“The consistent view of this court is that scope for review of President’s decision in mercy petitions is very limited,” the bench ruled, according to PTI.

Three of the four convicts had also approached the Delhi High Court late on Thursday evening with a similar request to stop their execution. Justice Manmohan and Justice Sanjeev Narula heard AP Singh and other lawyers for close to 90 minutes but did not find any reason to suspend the death warrant.

The four men—Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma—were hanged simultaneously inside Tihar Jail number 3 more than seven years after they gang-raped and fatally assaulted the woman.

The four men had assaulted and gang-raped the paramedic student inside a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. The young woman died at a hospital in Singapore two weeks later.

This is the first hanging in India in a rape case since Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004.

The last hanging inside Tihar was of Afzal Guru on February 9, 2013. Guru was convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack case.