School dropout, bus cleaner, fruit seller, gym instructor: Men convicted in Delhi bus rape hanged

Shreya, Mar 20: Seven years after a young medical student was gang-raped and tortured on a moving bus in Delhi, a crime that jolted the nation, the convicts were hanged were hanged on Friday at 5.30 am, 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.

Vinay Sharma (27)

Vinay Sharma was a fitness trainer and a resident of Ravidass camp, a slum in south Delhi. In 2016, Sharma had attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself in the Tihar Jail. He first took painkillers and then tried to hang himself with a towel in the cell.

Akshay Thakur (33)

Akshay Thakur, a school dropout, hailed from Bihar and came to Delhi in 2011. He was the conductor of the bus in which the crime was committed and had fled the city.

Thakur was arrested a few days later from his native village in Aurangabad district. He had claimed that he was not in Delhi when the brutal incident took place but the probe revealed he was on the bus and involved in the crime.

Pawan Gupta (25)

Pawan Gupta, a fruit seller, had claimed that he was a juvenile at the time of the offence in 2012. Youngest of the four convicts, he pursued graduation from inside Tihar jail.

Mukesh Singh (33)

Mukesh Singh is the younger brother of Ram Singh, driver of the bus who had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail in 2013. Mukesh Singh was a part-time bus driver and a cleaner. The two brothers also lived in Ravidass camp.

In an interview to BBC, Mukesh had claimed that women who went out at night had only themselves to blame if they attracted the attention of molesters.

The four convicts, along with two others including Ram Singh and a juvenile, had raped and brutally tortured a 23-year-old paramedic student on a moving bus in south Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012.

The victim, who was accompanied by her friend, was thrown out of the bus. Thirteen days later, the victim succumbed to her injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.