INDIA: NIRBHAYA CONVICTS TO BE HANGED ON 22 JANUARY

January 9, 2020:

Four men sentenced to death for the gang rape and murder of a woman on a New Delhi bus in an attack that sent shockwaves across the world will be hanged on 22 January in Tihar Jail in the national Capital, an Indian court ruled on 7 January 2020.
The four men - Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - were convicted in 2013 of the rape, torture and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a case that triggered large protests in India.
The attack prompted India to enact tough new laws against sexual violence, including the death penalty for rape in some cases, but implementation has been poor and the attacks have shown no signs of let-up.
In 2017, India’s Supreme Court had upheld death sentences against the four men. In the last two years, the top court has dismissed review pleas filed by the convicts, paving the way for the execution.
The order to hang the four convicts on 22 January came after the parents of the victim asked the court to seek death warrants against the four men.
“We have fought the legal battle with a lot of patience for more than seven years. Now, I finally get justice,” the mother of the victim, who cannot be named under Indian law, told reporters after the order of the court.