'Beasts have been hanged': Rape victim Nirbhaya's mother celebrates executions of killers

The mother of Jyoti Singh dubbed as ‘Nirbhaya’, who was gang-raped and killed by six men on a bus in New Delhi, made a victory sign over the executions of the killers, saying that her daughter has finally got justice after seven years.

Asha Devi, 51, said outside the Tihar prison where the rapists were executed that ‘the beasts have been hanged’.

The anguished mother said she believes it was better that her daughter Jyoti died after the brutal attack instead of being subjected to the crime ‘over and over again in her fight for justice’, Dailymail UK reported.

Speaking just minutes after the executions, the victim’s mother added: ‘I hugged my daughter’s photograph and told her we finally got justice.’ Her father added that his ‘faith in the judiciary had been restored’.

The victim could not be named in India under Indian law but was dubbed Nirbhaya – the fearless one – by the press until her mother said she wanted Jyoti Singh’s real name to be remembered.

A physiotherapist student, Jyoti Singh aged 23, had been gang-raped by six men on a bus in India’s capital New Delhi when she was returning home with a young male friend from the cinema.

The two were attacked with a metal bar which was used to cause Jyoti horrific internal injuries. The couple were dumped naked by the side of the road. While the friend survived, Jyoti died in hospital 12 days later after identifying her attackers.

Following Jyoti’s identification of the men, there was an immediate arrest of all six criminals. However one of them was a juvenile at the time of the incident and was released from prison three years later, and another of the convicts allegedly committed suicide in jail.

The remaining four – Akshay Kumar Singh, 31, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Mukesh Singh 32 – remained on death row until they were hanged at 5.30 am this morning in high-security Tihar prison in New Delhi.

The execution was India’s first since 2015, but it sparked celebrations outside the prison this morning as the hangings were carried out around 5.30am.

India’s top court upheld the guilty verdicts in 2017, finding the men’s crimes had created a ‘tsunami of shock’ among Indians.

Nearly 34,000 rapes were reported in India in 2018, according to official data. This is considered the tip of the iceberg, with many more too scared to come forward.

Almost 150,000 rape cases are awaiting trial in India’s dysfunctional criminal justice system.