How Nirbhaya’s Parents Reacted To Lawyer Indira Jaising’s ‘Pardon’ Appeal

NEW DELHI: After senior advocate Indira Jaising urged Nirbhaya's mother to pardon the four 'death-row' convicts following the example of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the comments have not gone down too well with Nirbhaya's parents.

Jaising had tweeted on Friday:

Her father on Saturday said that Jaising should be "ashamed" of suggesting pardon for the four convicts and that his family isn't as "large-hearted" as Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. He also demanded an apology from the lawyer for her stand against capital punishment.

"She (Indira Jaising) is a woman herself. She should be ashamed of her comments and apologise to Nirbhaya's mother," he was quoted saying by a news agency. "We have been fighting the case for seven years. We are common people and not politicians. Humara dil Sonia Gandhi ji jitna bada nahi hai (We are not as large-hearted as Sonia Gandhi)," he said.

"Such mentality is responsible for the rising number of rapes," he added.

His wife Asha Devi, held similar views and said that she didn't approve of Jaising's 'pardon' statement.

"Can't believe how Indira Jaising even dared to suggest such this. I met her many times over the years in Supreme Court, not once did she ask for my wellbeing and today she is speaking for convicts. Such people make a living by supporting rapists, hence rape incidents don't stop," Asha Devi told news agency ANI.

"Who is Indira Jaising to give me such a suggestion? The whole country wants the convicts to be executed. Just because of people like her, justice is not done with rape victims," she added.

On Friday, a Delhi court issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan (25) -- in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind had rejected the mercy petition of Mukesh.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will hear on January 20 a plea of a death row convict in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case against a Delhi High Court order dismissing his claim of being a juvenile at the time of commission of the offence.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya (fearless), was gangraped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons, including the four death row convicts, before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to her injuries a fortnight later at a hospital in Singapore.

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