Here is the chronology of events in the Nirbhaya case.
Hours after the clemency plea of Vinay Kumar Sharma, 26, was dismissed by the President, Akshay Thakur, 31, a third death row convict, filed a mercy petition.
The Cabinet has already cleared two proposals that will receive support from the fund.
Singh had moved the mercy plea after the Supreme Court dismissed his curative petition against his conviction and death sentence. The apex court had also rejected the curative petition of another death row convict Akshay Kumar, 31.
"I am not pained at the fact that execution has been postponed but I am pained at the fact that the lawyer of the convicts A P Singh has challenged me saying that the convicts will never be executed, this is the most painful thing," said Asha Devi.
The Saffron party alleged that the accused was a DMK office-bearer, which was denied by the ruling party.
The petition sought recording of calls, documents and reports by an investigating agency like CBI and to declare that the convict has legal and constitutional rights to approach any court at any time even in the last minute of hanging.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana on Thursday refused to grant any relief to Akshay Kumar, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh and rejected the petition saying no valid ground has been brought to his notice to justify the stay of execution of death warrants scheduled on March 20 at 5:30 am.
The minor girl was allegedly raped by one Ranjeet, who works as a guard and resides in the ground floor of the same building as the victim.
I have outraged too much in the past like many others, which hasn't gotten us anywhere. Rapes have merely become statistics in our country, best meant for research reports and discussions at conferences, says Devanik Saha.
The Buxar jail, the only prison in the state having the required knowhow, received an instruction to the effect last week
As the last-ditch attempt, Mukesh through his counsel on Tuesday sought an urgent hearing on his plea against dismissal of the mercy plea before the top court.
A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road.
"Tell the women in your state that you do not care for them," the bench said while observing that 24 states and UTs have not yet filed their affidavit as per the court's direction.
In the case that has brought back memories of the infamous Shraddha Walkar killing, Mahalakshmi's body was found on Saturday in the refrigerator in her flat at Vyalikaval in Bengaluru.
'Sanjay Roy is not alone.' 'If he's kept alive, maybe we will know what happened.' 'Why was he in the chest medicine department that night when he never went there earlier?' 'Nobody will parade in front of a CCTV camera and then go and murder someone.' 'There are several people who are involved in this heinous crime. They have to be identified and punished.'
Just a few kilometres from Tihar Jail where their sons were executed at 5.30 am, the women sit outside their homes in south Delhi's slum colony Ravidas Camp, waiting for the bodies of the two young men who were among the six who so brutally raped a 23-year-old woman on December 16, 2012 that she died of her injuries a fortnight later.
The four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case spent a restless and sleepless night. They were asked to take a bath but none of them did. All of them were served their last meal but one of them refused breakfast before being taken to the gallows, an official said.
The visibly heartbroken and exhausted parents of Nirbhaya on Friday slammed reports of the Home ministry contemplating of having the juvenile convict sign a legal bond affirming good behaviour after his release, and demanded to know how it would guarantee that he would not repeat the crime again.
The juvenile convict in the 'Nirbhaya' gang-rape case of 2012 won't be released from jail and will be under the monitoring of an NGO for a year, sources said.
Parents of the December 16 gangrape victim along with 40 Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University students were detained by the police today as they staged a protest against the release of the juvenile convict in the case.
This is the first time that four men will be hanged together in Tihar jail.
The scholarship for girls aged between 17 and 23 is a one-time reward of INR 25,000.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of mercy petition of convict Pawan Kumar Gupta.
However, hours after the high court order was pronounced, Akshay's mercy plea was rejected by the President on Wednesday evening. The mercy pleas of Mukesh and Vinay have already been rejected. Pawan is yet to seek that relief.
The anger and the anguish are on the rise. News of a botched-up post mortem, tampering of evidence, a hurried cremation has gone global, reports Payal Singh Mohanka from London.
The fourth convict, Pawan Gupta, has not filed a curative petition, which he still can if he chooses.
Sources said if the mercy petition is not filed, the prison authorities approach the court, which will issue a death warrant.
Pramod Singh Kushwaha, then the additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) and who headed the investigation team, said each member of the team pitched in to prepare a watertight case against the convicts.
The senior scribe made the alleged defamatory remarks on social media platform X against Modi and Advani after the Centre announced that the latter would be conferred with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.
Declaring that 'enough is enough', President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday said it is time for India to wake up to the 'perversion' of crimes against women and counter the mindset that sees women as 'less powerful, less capable, less intelligent'.
The court suggested setting up a committee to study the issue and recommend rules and guidelines to be followed in schools to avoid such incidents.
The parents of the December 16 Delhi gang rape victim on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the Supreme Court rejecting the plea against release of the juvenile convict, the parents of the December 16 gang-rape victim on Monday said the courts have failed them and asked how many Nirbhayas would it take for the laws to change.
The bench said all relevant material including judgments pronounced by trial court, high court and Supreme Court were placed before the President when he was considering the mercy plea of convict Mukesh Kumar Singh.
'Leave aside the negative fallouts of phraseology like 'urban Naxals' and 'terrorists', both the BJP and the Congress have to re-discover themselves in the context of the 2024 election results, including those of the upcoming ones for Maharashtra and Jharkhand,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The bench said it was a stratagem devised by the convicts on how to prolong the matter as they kept on sitting after dismissal of their appeals by the Supreme Court. It also noted that the apex court in July last year dismissed Mukesh's review petition but further remedies were being availed now.
Following is the chronology of events in the sensational 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case in which four death row convicts were hanged Friday morning.
Kolkata hangs its head in shame as the hope of a government with a moral compass and a heart in the right place recedes into the distance, notes Payal Singh Mohanka.
The top court rejected the contention of Sharma that he is mentally ill and said his medical report suggests he is stable.
