Nirbhaya: Restless Night for Rapists Before Execution

The four convicts of the Nirbhaya rape and murder case spent a restless night on Thursday before their scheduled hanging on Friday at Tihar Jail in Delhi. The last few hours of the convicts were spent in isolation, in separate cells at Jail 3, said, jail officials.

All the four convicts, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta,Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh who were hanged at 5:30 am today were woken at3:30 am, around the time they learnt they had reached the end of the road incourts.

However, the convicts had not expressed any lastwish or will to authorities, said an official.

The official further informed that the convicts also refused to have their breakfast, their last meal before being taken to the gallows and were up much of the night. They didn't even take a bath when asked by the jail authorities to do so.

Before the execution, jail doctors also did amedical check-up of the four men. Five people witnessed the hanging- the jailsuperintendent, deputy superintendent, the resident medical officer, the districtmagistrate and another staff member of the jail.

Three of the four convicts- Pawan, Vinay, and Mukesh also did labour work at Tihar Jail and the wage for their work during their time in the prison will be sent to their families. The belongings of the four men will also be handed over to the family.

However, their bodies were kept hanging for 30minutes as per the protocol in Delhi Prison Rule, following which a doctordeclared them dead.

Their bodies were moved to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital for autopsy. A five-member panel will do the post-mortem before they are disposed of as per their religion.