India / Nirbhaya convicts broke prison rules 23 times, earned ₹1.37L in labour wage: Report

New Delhi: Four convicts in Nirbhaya gang rape case, whose execution is just a week away, earned nearly Rs 1,37,000 as prison wages during their stay in Delhi's Tihar Jail in the last seven years, sources have said, adding that they broke prison rules 23 times during this period.

Convicts Akshay Thakur Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma were found guilty in the 2012 gang-rape, torture and killing of a young medical student in Delhi. They will be hanged at 7 am on January 22, a Delhi court had said earlier this month, signing a death warrant.

While Vinay was punished 11 times for breaking prison rules during his stay in prison, Akshay was punished once, Mukesh broke rules thrice, and Pavan broke rules eight times.

In the last seven years, Mukesh chose not to do any labour work, Akshay earned Rs 69,000 as prison wages, Pawan earned Rs 29,000, and Vinay earned Rs 39,000, sources said.

In 2016, three convicts - Mukesh, Pawan and Akshay - took admission for Class 10th and appeared for exams but couldn't pass. Vinay, in 2015, took admission in a bachelor's degree program but he couldn't complete it.

The family of all the convicts have been allowed to meet them twice before the hanging. Vinay, the convict who has got the maximum punishment, is reportedly the most anxious. His father visited him on Tuesday.

Arrangements for hanging the four men convicted in the gang-rape, torture and killing of a young medical student in Delhi in 2012 began last month. The convicts have been kept in different cells and monitored through CCTV. A "dummy execution" was carried out at Tihar jail on Sunday to prepare for the execution.

The four men will be hanged together, a first in India. The Uttar Pradesh Prison authority has confirmed that Pawan Jallad from Meerut will be sent to hang the four convicts. He will be paid Rs 15000 per execution, sources said.

The Supreme Court has already turned down petitions against the death sentence from three of the convicts, and a mercy petition from a fourth has also been turned down. On Tuesday, Mukesh filed a mercy petition to President Ram Nath Kovind.

The 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped and tortured with an iron rod on a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012, before being dumped on a road, naked and bleeding. She died on December 29 amid street protests across the country which named her Nirbhaya or "fearless".