Nirbhaya killers declared dead by doctors 30 minutes after hanging

New Delhi, Mar 20: All four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case - Pawan Kumar Gupta, Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay - were declared dead by a doctor after examination, said Tihar jail authorities. They were left hanging for sometime to ensure death. The four Convicts were hanged at 5:30 am on Friday, 20 March.

According to the official, their bodies remained suspended in the air for nearly half-an-hour. "Doctor has examined and declared all four dead," Director General of Tihar Jail Sandeep Goel said.

The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul.

Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night.

Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her.

She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight. Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.