The wife of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, has filed for a divorce at a family court in the local district court of Aurangabad in Bihar, stating that she does not want to live the life of a widow, since her husband is set to be hanged on 20 March.
Punita Devi, the wife of Akshay Kumar Singh filed the petition through her lawyer Mukesh Kumar Singh, stating that “My husband is innocent. I want to be legally divorced before he is hanged.”
As per sources, Punita’s lawyer while addressing to the media in Aurangabad stated that ‘My client (Punita) has the right to seek divorce from her husband. That is why I have filed a plea in the family court. She has the right to seek divorce under Section 13(2)(II) of the Hindu Marriage Act which says a woman can seek divorce if the husband has, since the solemnization of the marriage, been guilty of rape, sodomy or bestiality.’
All the four convicts of Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay, and Akshay Kumar Singh are currently lodged in Tihar jail and are set to be hanged on 20 March at 5:30 AM. The convicts have been continuously using various tactics to delay the hanging, which has already been postponed twice i.e. on 22 January and 1 February, respectively. They have even approached international court and India’s Human Rights Commission, seeking a stay on their execution.
