New Delhi
The hanging of four men scheduled for Saturday for a notorious gang-rape and murder on a Delhi bus in 2012 has been postponed “until further orders,” a court ordered on Friday.
The brutal attack on Jyoti Singh sparked weeks of demonstrations and shone a spotlight on the alarming rates of sexual violence and the plight of women in India.Four men were convicted in 2013 and were due to be hanged simultaneously on Saturday at 6:00 am in India’s first execution since 2015.
A fifth, the suspected ringleader, was found dead in jail in a suspected suicide, while a 17-year-old accomplice spent three years in a juvenile detention center.
The delay was because one of the men still has the option of a final legal appeal. Another has filed a “mercy petition” with the Indian president which is outstanding.—AFP
