The BJP on Sunday attacked the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi for allegedly delaying justice in the Nirbhaya case and trying to shield the convicts in the 2012 rape and murder of a 23-year-old from the death penalty.
At a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, the national president of the party’s women’s wing and Rajya Sabha MP Saroj Pandey said lawyer Indira Jaising had appealed to the victim’s mother to forgive the convicts, who are on death row. Ms. Pandey said Ms. Jaising had been “connected with the AAP” and should have “thought not one once, but a 1,000 times before making such a statement”.
Delhi BJP president and north east Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari added that the Delhi government’s responsibility was to inform the convicts of their punishment when it was handed out by court in July 2017. He said the government only informed the convicts after two years, delaying the process of them filing mercy petitions.
“The Deputy Chief Minister [Manish Sisodia] says they don’t have the police under them so they couldn’t do it. But the prison department is with the State government, in Delhi also. It has nothing to do with the police,” he said.
Delhi BJP vice-president Shazia Ilmi, who had been a member of the AAP before joining the BJP in 2015, said Ms. Jaising had been “close to the AAP” and represented the Delhi government in the court. She asked how the AAP government was able to amend the jail manual two years ago if it did not have jurisdiction over prisons.
Mr. Sisodia had said on January 16: “The BJP-led government and the Home Ministry directs and controls the police and is responsible for the law and order in Delhi and for administration of Tihar Jail. The director-general of Tihar reports to you and then you blame us for the delay?”
He added: “Bring the Delhi police under our jurisdiction for two days, we will ensure execution of Nirbhaya’s culprits.”
