December 16 would have remained just another date had not their depravity snuffed out a young life and left a country of over a billion shocked. Two years on, the four convicts lodged at Tihar Jail and their families are still cautiously optimistic about their chances of a reprieve.
Life for Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma has come to a standstill as one verdict could mean an end to it. A fast track court that heard the case awarded them capital punishment last year, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court this March. With the Supreme Court hearing an appeal against their executions, uncertainty looms large.
Their accomplice Ram Singh was found hanging inside his cell during the course of the trial while the then-minor co-accused is lodged at a correction home.
In Tihar, Akshay and Mukesh are lodged in jail number 5, while the other two in jail number 7, where usually younger criminals are kept. A jail official told The Hindu that because of security reasons they are not allowed to participate in skill-development programmes or take up vocations like other inmates.
They spend their day watching television and reading newspapers, where their names still appear, though not as frequently as before. All four are often heard telling fellow prisoners how they are hopeful about the Supreme Court granting them relief in the form of a life term, said jail sources.
Doubts about their prospects of staying alive have also affected their academic pursuits. They have but abandoned further studies. Among them, only Akshay appeared successfully for his matriculation through open learning last year.
Meanwhile, in another part of the town, their families see the media as “the culprit” which pushed their sons to trial even before their arrest. This hostility was apparent when The Hindu visited Ravi Dass Camp, where three of the four adult accused lived.
While the families of Pawan and Mukesh refused to speak to the media, Vinay’s mother Champa Devi directed her anger towards the media. She even went on to question the lack of “similar public outrage” after the Uber rape incident. She also put across the case of Uber to question if her son’s conviction had ended atrocities against women.
The anger in her voice was in contrast to the apologetic tone soon after her son’s arrest. Back then, she herself had advocated that justice be delivered to the girl. The interpretation of “justice” has changed two years later as she now insists that the Supreme Court should set her son free to uphold it. The mother’s emotional outburst is somewhat contradicted by the murmur which follows: “Ram Singh’s company ruined his life.”
