NGO seeks permission to recite 'Garuda Purana' to Nirbhaya convicts

An Etah-based NGO on Saturday said it has approached the Tihar Jail authorities seeking permission to recite 'Garuda Purana' to the death-row convicts of the Nirbhaya case to make them "mentally prepared" to face the gallows.

The 'Garuda Purana' scripture is one of the 18 'Mahapuranas' in Hinduism, and it talks in details about 'karma', afterlife and reincarnation among others. Pradeep Raghunandan, the chairperson of the NGO Rashtriya Yuva Shakti which works for reforming jail inmates, said he has written a letter to the Tihar jail authorities on January 12 asking for the permission, but is yet to get a reply.

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In the letter, Raghunandan said, "In order to remove fear from the mind of the convicts, and to make them mentally prepared for the capital punishment, 'Garuda Puraan' should be recited. According to the religious and cultural tradition of India its recitation may prove useful." Fresh death warrants were issued by a Delhi court on Friday for the execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case at 6 am on February 1, shortly after the President quickly rejected the mercy petition of one of them.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital. Six people Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Ram Singh and a juvenile were named as accused. The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.

The prime accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years. He was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. The juvenile, when released, was 20 years old. Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay and Pawan were convicted and sentenced to death in September 2013. 

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