NEW DELHI: A Delhi court Thursday issued fresh death warrants for execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case for March 20 at 5.30 am.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana fixed March 20 as the new date of execution after it was told by the Delhi government that the convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies.

The lawyer for the four death row convicts also told the court that there was no legal impediment for court in proceeding to fix the date of execution.

The execution of the death warrants of the four convicts - Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - has been deferred thrice so far due to delays by them in exhausting legal remedies. All the convicts in the case are to be hanged together.

The first date of execution — January 22 — fixed on January 7 was postponed by the court to February 1. But on January 31, the court indefinitely postponed the hanging. On February 17, the court again issued fresh date for execution of death warrants for March 3 at 6 am.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The case has witnessed a series of twists and turns right after a Delhi court on September 13, 2013 awarded the death sentence to the four convicts, less than one year after the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang-raped 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.



In Video: Nirbhaya case: 4 convicts to hang on March 20, says Delhi court