Hitting back at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of “delaying” the hanging of the four December 16 gang-rape convicts, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday said the Delhi government would have hanged the convicts in two days if it had control over the police and law and order in the city.
“Give us Delhi Police and law-and-order responsibility for two days, and we will hang the convicts. Javadekar ji the police is under you, the responsibility of law and order is under you, the home ministry is under you, the Tihar DG [director general] and its administration are under you, and you are blaming us? Please don’t stoop so low on a sensitive issue. This is a clear attempt to instigate people,” said Sisodia, a senior leader of the AAP, in a press conference.
His comment came hours after Union minister Prakash Javadekar blamed the AAP government’s “negligence” for the “delay” in hanging the convicts. Javadekar said it took more than two-and-a-half years for the Delhi government to give notice to the rapists after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal against the death sentence in 2017.
Sisodia said it is “unfortunate” that a senior member of the Union Cabinet was “lying” on such a sensitive matter. He said the BJP is “misleading” people because it “does not have any real issue to talk about” in the upcoming polls.
“I want to ask you [Javadekar] why is the Union home ministry and the Union home minister Amit Shah not taking responsibility for this delay,” Sisodia asked.
The AAP government told the Delhi high court on Wednesday that Mukesh Singh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Thakur (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) — the four convicts in the Dec 16 gang-rape and murder case — will not be hanged on January 22 as scheduled, because one of them has moved a mercy plea and according to the prison rules, they cannot be executed till they exhaust all the legal remedies available to them.
The four rapists were to be hanged on January 22 at 7am in Tihar jail after a court issued death warrants on January 7.
Sisodia said the Delhi government had rejected the mercy plea “within two hours” of receiving the file. “We previously also said that we rejected the plea and sent it to the L-G [Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal] at lightning speed. It is with the home ministry now,” he said.
Sisodia’s comment came days after chief minister Arvind Kejriwal made a similar demand in the context of the recent violence in Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia. “Give us Delhi Police for two days, we’ll do wonders,” he had said during a town hall meeting at Connaught Place’s Central Park.
