Four men convicted of gang-raping and murdering a young Delhi woman, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, were hanged in pre-dawn darkness on Friday, closing a horrific chapter that shook the nation’s collective core with the details of its barbarity and led to tougher anti-rape laws.
Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) andAkshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am in Tihar Jail, eight yearsafter the cold winter night of December 16, 2012 when the 23-year-old internwas raped in a bus that moved through the streets of the national capital. As news of the execution came in, finallydelivering hard-won justice to her family and to an outraged nation, her motherlet out a sigh of relief that her quest for justice was over at last.
“We finally got justice. We will continue our fight forjustice for India’s daughters. Justice delayed, but not denied,” Asha Devitold reporters at her home after a sleepless night that also saw the SupremeCourt holding an extraordinary hearing that continued till 3.30 am. Jailofficials said the bodies were kept hanging for half an hour, a mandatoryprocedure after execution in accordance with the prison manual. The bodies weretaken to the DDU Hospital for post-mortem and then handed to the families forthe last rites.Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoed the grievingmother and said justice had prevailed. It was of the utmost importance toensure the dignity and safety of women, he added. This is the first time thatfour men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia’s largest prisoncomplex that houses more than 16,000 inmates.