Court seeks ATR from jail authority on plea of Nirbhaya case convict

A Delhi court on Thursday sought an action taken report from Mandoli jail authorities on a plea by Pawan Kumar Gupta, a death row convict in Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, seeking registration of an FIR against two cops for allegedly assaulting him in the prison last year.

Metropolitan Magistrate Prayank Nayak asked the jail authorities to file the ATR by April 8, the next date of hearing.

Gupta, through his counsel A P Singh, has sought a direction to the station house officer of Harsh Vihar Police Station to register an FIR against constable Anil Kumar and another unidentified police constable.

The complaint said that since Pawan is scheduled to be hanged on March 20, it is necessary to allow him to appear as a witness for identifying both policemen.

The criminal complaint alleged that Pawan was badly beaten up by the two constables on July 26 and 29, 2019 when he was lodged in the Mandoli central jail in East Delhi.

It said he was then treated at Guru Teg Bahadur government hospital in Shahdara for his alleged head injury and had received 14 stitches. He sought registration of the FIR against the two policemen under penal provisions relating to physical assault, it added.

On March 5, another Delhi court presided over by Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana had issued fresh black warrants for the execution of the four death row convicts, including Pawan Kumar Gupta, on March 20 at 5.30 am.

The death row convicts are Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died a fortnight after the incident.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.