Tihar gets ready to execute Nirbhaya case convicts

NEW DELHI: Seven years after the execution of Afzal Guru, Tihar Jail on Thursday prepared the ground to hang the four men convicted in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case after several dummy runs and officials brushing up on details specified in the jail manual.
Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) are scheduled to be hanged on Friday at 5.30 am for the savage gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern on the night of December 16, 2012.

This is the first time that four men will be hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates.

A senior prison official said Pawan Jallad, a hangman from Meerut, reported to the Tihar Jail administration on Tuesday evening to prepare for the exercise.

According to the jail manual, the jail superintendent will oversee the testing of the ropes and also inspect the gallows a day before the execution.

This will be followed by a dummy execution -- a dummy or a bag of sand weighing 1.5 times the weight of the prisoner will be hanged and dropped between 1.830 and 2.440 metres to test the rope.

The execution, specifies the Delhi Prison Rules 2018, will take place in the presence of the superintendent, deputy superintendent, medical officer in charge, resident medical officer and the district magistrate or additional district magistrate.

A guard of not less than 10 constables, warders and two head constables, head warders or an equal number from the prison armed guard, will also be present, it states.

The families of the prisoner will not be allowed to witness the executions. All other prisoners will be kept locked till the exercise is over and the bodies removed from the prison.

The manual specifies that a medical officer prepares a report four days ahead of the date of execution, mentioning the length of the drop to be given to the prisoner who is to be executed.