Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar (31), and Mukesh Kumar (32) convicted for the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder in December 2012, were executed at Delhi's Tihar Jai earlier today morning.  The Director General of TIhar Jail confirmed that the four convicts were hanged to death in Delhi’s Tihar jail at 0530hrs today.  Doctor examined and confirmed all four dead.

The Supreme Court, after a midnight hearing of one of the convicts, who filed a last minute plea seeking a review of his death penalty, rejected the plea and the execution of all four was done today morning.

#WATCH Asha Devi, mother of 2012 Delhi gang rape victim says, "As soon as I returned from Supreme Court, I hugged the picture of my daughter and said today you got justice". pic.twitter.com/OKXnS3iwLr

— ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020

This is the first time that four people have been hanged together in Tihar Jail. An official confirmed that none of the convicts had expressed any last wish. Their belongings and the money they had earned over their stay in Jail was handed over to their family members after the execution.

“One who seeks protection of law first needs to learn to respect it. Therefore, I do not find any plausible reasons to suspend the execution of death sentence simply because convict Pawan has opted not to exercise his legal remedy”- Delhi High Court on Thursday evening, a day before the execution

Nirbhaya, the gang rape victim died of her severe condition after she was raped in a moving bus in December 2012.  The rapists as well as the bus driver and a juvenile were arrested soon after and the case has been in progress since then.  After several hearing and pleas, which were rejected by the Courts and the President, they were finally hanged today. The driver Ram Singh, had earlier committed suicide in jail and one of the convicts who was a minor at that time, was sent to the Juvenile Justice Board, to be dealt separately with.

After the first death warrant issued for January 22, 2020 was awarded by the court, the convicts went on a pleading spree.  The second death sentence was handed for February 17. Subsequent plea and such resulted in a third death warrant for March 3. Finally a last death warrant was issued for March 20, which was executed today.

The convicts' bodies have been moved to the Deen Daya Upadhyay Hospital, where a post mortem will be done. The autopsies will be video-graphed.  Later, the Lockdown in Tihar Jail was also lifted a couple of hours after the execution. Lockdown in jail is mandatory during an execution.  The Tamil Nadu Special Police, which is in-charge of security at Tihar Jail, conducted a flag march in the facility to ensure order.