The six men behind the Nirbhaya case

On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old Delhi woman was raped by six men in a moving bus and died in a Singapore hospital a fortnight later. More than seven years later, four of the six men were executed on Friday in what came to be known as the Nirbhaya case.

Here is who they were:

Ram Singh: One of the six accused, Ram Singh was the alleged driver of the bus in which Nirbhaya was savagely assaulted. He was the first to be arrested from his home in the slum colony of Ravidas Camp in south Delhi. His arrest led police to identify the other accused.

 

Singh allegedly hung himself inside Tihar Jail on March 10, 2013 while the trial was still on. His family alleged he was murdered inside the jail premises while police said he had committed suicide.

Mukesh Singh: Ram Singh's brother was hanged in Tihar Jail on Friday. He was arrested from Karoli in Rajasthan where he had escaped to after the crime. Police had to walk through the icy waters of a river in December since his hut was not in the main village but in the middle of an agricultural field.

In an interview to documentary filmmaker Leslee Udwin for her film "India's Daughter", he claimed he was at the wheel while the others raped Nirbhaya and had said she should not have fought back when she was being raped.

Pawan Gupta: The second person to be hanged. A fruit seller, he also stayed in Ravidas Camp and was arrested from there after Ram Singh led investigators to his home.

Data from his phone had corroborated his presence inside the bus that fateful night. His family claimed he was not present inside the bus and was falsely implicated in the case.

Vinay Sharma: The third person to be hanged. A gym trainer, Vinay also lived in Ravidas Camp. He was arrested from outside his gym. He had claimed he was not in the bus at the time of the incident and was at a music function. In 2016, he allegedly attempted suicide inside Tihar Jail but was saved. In February this year, he banged his head against a wall inside the jail and suffered minor injuries.

Akshay Kumar Singh: The fourth person to be sent to the gallows. Akshay, who worked with Ram Singh as a cleaner on the bus, was arrested from his village Tandwa in a Naxal stronghold area of Bihar. He filed a second mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind just three days before his scheduled hanging on March 20. His wife filed a divorce petition in a BIhar court saying she does not want to live as a widow.

The Juvenile: He was the last accused to be nabbed in connection with the case. A juvenile at the time of the crime, he was the one who had hailed Nirbhaya and her male friend to board the bus. His unique style of hailing passengers served as a vital clue for the investigating team that nabbed him from Anand Vihar. Since he was a juvenile at the time of crime, he was sent to a remand home from where he was released in December 2015.