Sanjiv Kumar Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Mar 18 (IANS): With all preparations in place once again at the Tihar Central Jail here for the March 20 hanging to death of four convicts awarded the capital punishment in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, a 'dummy trial' was held on the prison premises on Wednesday morning.

Hangman Pawan, who was brought from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, conducted the 'dummy trial' -- wherein a life-size dummy is hanged -- in the presence of jail officials in the hanging room of prison number 3 on Wednesday.

Tihar Jail Additional Inspector General Raj Kumar said such trials before any hanging is routine matter.

"Mainly, the hangman is assigned to carry out all the work related to the hanging. So, he has to ensure there is no glitch during the actual hanging. Hence, the dummy trial was held, which went on for half an hour," the senior officer said.

Fresh warrants for executing death row convicts -- Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, and Akshay Kumar have been issued by a Delhi court in the case. They are to hanged at 5.30am on March 20.