Nirbhaya case: Convict Pawan Gupta moves Delhi HC against two constables, alleging assault

New Delhi, Mar 12: Pawan Gupta, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case, through his Advocate, approached Delhi High Court challenging trial court order which dismissed the application questioning the credibility of the sole witness, claiming that he was a tutored witness and his statement wasn't credible.

Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta are scheduled to be hanged at Tihar Jail in Delhi on March 20 at 5.30 am.

AP Singh, the counsel for Gupta, said the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Karkardooma will hear his claim on Thursday at 2 pm.

The criminal complaint alleged that Gupta was violently assaulted by the two constables on July 26 and July 29 when he was lodged in the Mandoli central jail in East Delhi. Gupta has alleged that he received serious head injuries and was treated at Guru Teg Bahadur government hospital in Shahdara, where he received 14 stitches.

The complaint seeks a direction to the station house officer of Harsh Vihar police station to register a first information report against Anil Kumar and another unidentified constable for assaulting him. Since Gupta is to be executed soon, it is necessary for him to appear before a court as a witness to identify the policemen, the complaint added.

Last week, President Ram Nath Kovind rejected Gupta's mercy petition. Soon after, the Delhi government moved a trial court to seek fresh death warrants for the four convicts as all others' mercy pleas had already been rejected.

The Supreme Court on December 12, 2018, dismissed a PIL seeking direction to the Centre to execute the death penalty awarded to the four convicts.

Nirbhaya is the given name of the December 2012 victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who was raped and brutalised in a moving bus in South Delhi by six people.

She had boarded the nearly vacant bus in Munirka in South Delhi along with her male friend on her way back home on December 16 that year. After raping and brutalising the woman and beating her friend, the assailants had thrown them out of the bus.

After receiving initial treatment in New Delhi for a few days, she was shifted to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, where she succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012.