Nirbhaya Gangrape Case: Convict Mukesh Singh files mercy plea before President

One of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case has filed a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday.

Mukesh Singh has filed a mercy plea before the President, Tihar Prison authorities said.

Singh filed the mercy plea with President a day his curative petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

A five-judge bench of Justices NV Ramana, Arun Mishra, RF Nariman, R Banumathi, and Ashok Bhushan heard the curative petitions filed by Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh and subsequently rejected the pleas of the two convicted rapists.

Vinay and Mukesh had filed the curative petition after a Delhi Court had earlier issued a death warrant in their name, in connection with the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder incident. 

However, Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora had added while issuing the death warrant that the convicts can use their legal remedies within 14 days. 

The hanging of four convicts is scheduled for 7 am on January 22. The death warrants against them were issued against them by a Delhi court earlier this month.

The four convicts in the Nirbhaya case will be executed in Jail No 3 of Tihar.

23-year-old paramedic student Nirbhaya was gang-raped and brutalised on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, before being dumped on the road. She was airlifted to Singapore where she died on December 29, 2012. 

Six people, including a juvenile, were arrested for the crime. The juvenile was released after serving a three-year term at a juvenile home, one convict allegedly committed suicide in jail while four others - Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - are set to be hanged on January 22.