Indian court sets hanging date for men convicted in Dehli gang rape

A court in India issued a death warrant Tuesday for four men convicted of gang-raping a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in 2012. They are set to be hanged on January 22.

The men—Mukesh Singh, 32, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Akshay Kumar Singh, 31—have two weeks to make a final appeal to India’s president to stay the execution. He is not expected to do so, NPR reported.

“My daughter will get justice,” Asha Devi, the woman’s mother said. “This hanging will restore the faith of the country’s women.”

The woman, known as Nirbhaya, died 13 days after her ordeal, in which she and a male friend were attacked on a bus that drove around New Dehli for an hour. The two were heading home after a movie; the driver and other men on the bus beat the man and violated the woman with an iron rod, severely damaging her internal organs. They dumped the two on the side of the road. 

While the victim’s name was initially reported, media have redacted it since because it is against Indian law to reveal the names of sexual assault victims. “Nirbhaya” means “fearless” in Hindi.

The attack prompted a massive outcry in India, with hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the streets. While there has been legal reform since to provide harsher punishments for rape, there is still a massive sexual assault problem in India, as in many countries.

"In spite of stringent laws, we have not been able to control the crime," Ranjana Kumari, director of the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research, told CNN in 2018. "The systemic changes have not taken place. 

This is the first execution set to take place in the country since 2015. The death penalty is rare in India, with just four people executed since 2004, according to BBC.