Hope a precedent is set: Shefali Shah on Nirbhaya rapists death sentence

Justice was "overdue" but has finally been delivered, said actor Shefali Shah on Tuesday after a Delhi court pronounced death warrants to the four convicts in the sensational 2012 Nirbhaya Gang rape and murder case.

The four death row convicts -- Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) -- will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail.

Shah recently portrayed Vartika Chaturvedi on the Netflix series "Delhi Crime". The character was based on former Delhi Police DCP Chaya Sharma who cracked the case of the brutal gangrape of the physiotherapy intern within 72 hours.

The actor said she hopes the order sets a precedent in the country's judicial system.

"Finally, it (the order) was announced. It was overdue. We can't undo what happened but I hope and pray that such heinous crime doesn't happen again. It is important that a precedent is set," Shah told PTI over phone from Mumbai.

The convicts can't go scot-free is the takeaway, the 47-year-old actor said.

"Next time it should be seven weeks, not seven months or years," she added.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road.

She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail here.

A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.