The lawyer of rape and murder convicts in the Nirbhaya case, AP Singh said on Tuesday said that he has approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for seeking a stay on the execution of four convicts.
AP Singh told the reporters, “We have appealed the NHRC to stay the March 20 death warrant, which is a miscarriage of justice. The basis for the appeal is that Ram Singh, who is believed to have committed suicide in Tihar jail, has a 70-year old mother and a 10-year-old son.”
AP Singh alleged that Ram Singh was lynched in jail and his brother Mukesh Singh, another convict is the sole witness of the incident, therefore, he should be kept alive. “At that time it was suspected that Ram Singh had committed suicide. Now that the Book ‘Black Warrant’ has come out, it is clear that Ram Singh was lynched and jail officials were involved in it,” said AP Singh.
AP Singh alleged that the probe into Ram Singh’s death was biased and no compensation has been paid to his family. He said, “The probe into the alleged suicide was biased. Yet compensation has not been given to the family of the deceased. Mukesh is the only witness to the incident. If he is executed in a hurry, it will be a miscarriage of justice and violation of human rights.”
Singh urged the Human Rights Commission to stay the execution, seek records in the matter and give compensation to the family of Ram Singh.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mukesh Singh, who is one of the convicts in Nirbhaya’s rape and murder approached a Delhi court seeking repeal of the death penalty with a claim that he was not present in Delhi when the gruesome act of crime was committed. But the court dismissed his plea. The court also sent the matter to the Bar Council of India (BCI) asking them to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to Singh’s counsel.
The four convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma are scheduled to be hanged on 20 March at 5:30 am.
