Judges in Chennai on Tuesday delayed by two months the execution of three men convicted of the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The three men were due to be hanged on September 9 at a jail in the southern state of Tamil Nadu after India's president rejected their final mercy pleas earlier this month.
But the Chennai high court said it had "stayed the execution of the capital punishment by eight weeks" after a further round of appeals from lawyers and state politicians who oppose the executions. The hangings would be the first in India since 2004, when a former security guard was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl.