Nirbhaya case: Tihar Jail gets ready for final act

TNN | Mar 17, 2020, 04.57 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The preparations to execute the death warrant of the four Nirbhaya gang-rape-cum-murder convicts began in full swing at Tihar Jail on Monday. A team of engineers from the public works department visited the jail premises to check the tenacity of the gallows and also conducted a suspension test on the hanging bar. They will also be present when the hangman conducts a dummy hanging from these bars on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the jail authorities conducted a brain mapping test of the four convicts — Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma — during a counselling session to gauge their anxiety level. The exercise was conducted to ensure that they don’t suffer from sleep disorders or loss of appetite, leading to a weight loss, a source said.

The PWD team inspected the newly constructed portion of the gallows built to accommodate all four convicts. The final tests were carried out on Monday under the supervision of an additional inspector-general-rank jail officer. The pathway between the solitary cells and the hanging well, too, was inspected to remove any obstruction.

A jail official said the Manilla ropes that would be used in the hanging were greased with butter and mashed bananas on Monday and will be kept ready for the hangman, Pawan, when he arrives on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the jail counsellor and mental health experts from AIIMS who have been counselling inmates spoke to each of them individually. A source said that while Singh had been a recluse, the three others were still in denial about their execution and had expressed hope that their execution might get stalled after they moved the International Court of Justice on Monday.

While family members of Singh and Gupta have had their last meeting on Friday, Sharma’s family will meet him on Tuesday. Thakur’s family had last met him earlier this month after which no one reached out to the jail authorities for a meeting.

The jail authorities allowed the family members of the two convicts to have a one-to-one meeting with them during which they could physically touch them.

To avoid any untoward incident, additional personnel have been deployed round the clock outside the solitary cells of the four convicts since Monday.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)