Day on, UN asks India to halt capital punishment

United Nations, March 21

The UN has called on all nations to stop the use of capital punishment or put a moratorium on it, a day after four men convicted of gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman were hanged in India.

Seven years after the rape and murder of the young medical student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, the four convicts — Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) —were hanged to death on Friday in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

Responding to the hanging, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “Our position has been clear, is that we call on all States to halt the use of capital punishment or at least put a moratorium on it.”

The horrific gangrape and murder of the physiotherapy intern on December 16, 2012, had seared the nation’s soul and triggered countrywide

outrage. This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia’s largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. — PTI 

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