Akshay Singh Thakur, one among the six culprits, of 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape which happened in Delhi who hadn’t filed a plea along with other three, has now moved to the Supreme Court with a review petition.
On Tuesday the review petition was submitted to the apex court for its judgement made in 2017 confirming his death verdict, stating “executions only kill criminals, not the crime.”
In his plea to the apex court to reconsider his fate, it was stated that “The state must not simply execute people to prove that it is attacking terror or violence against women. It must persistently work towards systematic reforms to bring about change.”
Akshay (33), Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24) fiercely gang-raped a 23-year-old paramedical student who was travelling along with her friend in a bus at night on December 16-17, 2012. She died out of the internal injuries 16 days after the assault.
This made the government and lawmakers rethink about the anti-rape law and made it more strict; especially, gang-rape is now a capital crime.
The other three convicts had filed a review petition last year before the apex court which was dismissed and is now left with an extremely rare solution of filing curative petitions in the Supreme Court.
Akshay, who hadn’t filed the case along with others, have now opted for the same. It is reported that authorities are preparing Tihar jail for the execution.
One of the culprit in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar jail and another a juvenile, then 17, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a remand home after serving a three-year term.
In the review petition, he stated that they were considered as ‘guinea pigs’, and contended that his conviction sentence was influenced by political power which played a role in the investigation of such cases.
In a paragraph in the petition, Akshay said the air quality in Delhi NCR is like a “gas chamber.” The water “is also full of poison” and “life is going short to short, then why the death penalty?”
It was also added in the petition that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights and is against the principle of non-violence.
Now, what has to be looked into is: Will ‘Delhi Pollution’ Be The Life Savior For Rapists?
