Forgive Convicts: Indira Jaising To Nirbhaya’s Mother
Jan 18, 2020 | Pratirodh Bureau
FILE PHOTO: Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi can be seen in this undated photograph
Senior lawyer Indira Jaising has urged the mother of the December 16, 2012, gang rape victim to pardon the four men who are on death row for committing the brutal crime against her daughter.
Jaising took to Twitter to make the request shortly after Asha Devi on Friday expressed her disappointment following a Delhi court postponing the date of the execution of the four convicts.
“While I fully identify with the pain of Asha Devi I urge her to follow the example of Sonia Gandhi who forgave Nalini and said she did not want the death penalty for her. We are with you but against the death penalty,” Jaising tweeted.
Nalini was arrested and convicted for her role in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
Earlier, on Friday, Asha Devi had lashed out at the courts and the government stating that “the same people who had in the year 2012 gone around participating in rallies and raised slogans for women’s safety are playing with the death of my daughter for their political gains. They have stopped the execution for their political gains.”
The death-row convicts, who were earlier slated to be executed on January 22 at 7 am, are now set to be hanged on February 1 at 6 am.
Asha Devi rued that the convicts got what they wished for. “I will not be satisfied until they are hanged,” she added.
Four convicts, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan and Mukesh were convicted and sentenced to death for raping a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in the national capital on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012.
The victim succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Singapore where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.