‘We Cannot Allow This Sort Of Thing To Go On’: Rajya Sabha Chairman Naidu On Delay In Execution Of Nirbhaya Convicts

Lending his support for the call for early execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, the Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday (4 February) said that all institutions involved in the matter should fulfil their responsibilities and ensure that the verdict is implemented at the earliest, reports Hindustan Times.

The hanging of the four convicts, which was scheduled on 1 February, was postponed after a Delhi court following an application seeking stay on the execution as mercy plea of one of the convicts was pending.

The statement by VP Naidu came after Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh urged the house to seek intervention of President and Supreme Court in the matter, saying that the four convicts have no right to live.

“We cannot allow this sort of thing to go on in the country,” VP Naidu was quoted in the report as saying.

The Rajya Sabha Chairman said that the convicts have been given available legal opportunity and had exhausted all of them. However, they were delaying execution of the penalty decided by the courts on one excuse or the other.

The four convicts - Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh - have been awarded death penalty in the rape and murder of 23-year-old paramedic students inside a moving bus in December 2012.