Teen's rapist gets death penalty

TNN May 18, 2013 BHOPAL: A trial court here on Friday sentenced to death a 45-year-old motor mechanic, Mustafa, who was found guilty of raping and throttling to death a minor on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, 2012.

The prosecution case was that Mustafa, with whom the 16-year-old girl had close family acquaintance, took her in a car, raped and murdered her. He later dumped her body at Budhni ghat about 45km from Bhopal.
A search was launched by police after the girl's family had filed a missing complaint.
On September 29, Budhni police found the body and buried it as an 'unidentified' one. Later, when Bhopal got leads during interrogation of Mustafa, they exhumed the body and brought it to Bhopal.
Mustafa and his alleged accomplice Aziz were charged with rape, murder and destroying evidence.
After hearing the case, court of additional session judge Saeeda Bano Rahman held Mustafa guilty on all the charges and awarded death penalty for him. However, Aziz was acquitted for lack of evidence.
When the judge asked whether he had any reason to cite why he should not be given capital punishment, Mustafa said that he was the sole breadwinner of his family. His counsel argued that his offence did not fall under the 'rarest of rare' category of crimes, for a death sentence.
However, the public prosecutor argued for capital punishment on the ground that the crime was of a 'cruel' nature.
After hearing the argument, the judge stated she was unable to find any 'justifying circumstances' not to award death penalty for the accused. She stated that an exemplary punishment is required to put a check on such cases and also to ensure that fear of law remains among criminals in society.
It may be recalled that tension had gripped the Mansarovar complex area in Bhopal after people set on fire shops and damaged vehicles after the incident on September 29. The accused worked in a motor-repairing shop at the locality.

Source : http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-18/bhopal/39353320_1_mustafa-death-penalty-punishment

Man gets death penalty for raping, killing minor girl

A 22-year-old man was today sentenced to death by a local court for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. May 16, 2013 Thane

Thane Additional Sessions Judge AA Sayeed held Shekhar Gupta guilty under sections 376 (2)(1) of IPC and awarded life imprisonment, and section 302 (murder) of the IPC for which he has been sentenced to death.
According to the prosecution, Gupta had abducted the school girl, raped her and murdered her to destroy evidence in December 2009.
The accused, who was married and has two children, worked as a contract labour with a company in Thane city.
The victim's father, a resident of Lokmanya Nagar, told the court that on December 24, 2009, when he returned home in the evening from work, he was told that his daughter, a Class II student at Saint Ulai School, had not returned till then.
When he went out in search of her, Gupta met him on the way and told him that he had met the girl and gave her chocolate and biscuits.
The parents lodged a missing complaint with police and the next day her body was found under a hillock.
Additional Public Prosecutor Hemlata Deshmukh said this was a rarest of the rare case which deserved nothing less than death sentence.
The court, relying on the witnesses from the vicinity and circumstantial evidence, held that the accused was guilty of the charges levelled against him and sentenced him to death.

Source : http://www.mid-day.com/news/2013/may/160513-man-gets-death-penalty-for-raping-killing-minor-girl-crime.htm

High Court admits Mane plea against death penalty

Express news service : Mon May 13 2013, 04:08 hrs 

Santosh Mane, the state transport bus driver who was awarded death penalty in a road rage case, has moved the Bombay High Court challenging the sessions court verdict. A plea filed by lawyer Jaideep Mane on the convict’s behalf was admitted by the high court on May 9.
A bench of Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice P D Kode will hear the case.
“The hearings in the high court will start in July. We were not happy with the outcome of the trial in the sessions court. The accused was not even given an opportunity to present his side as per the provision before he was awarded the death penalty. We are hoping that the high court will take a lenient view on account of the mental unsoundness of the accused,” said advocate Jaideep Mane.
On April 8, Mane was awarded the death sentence by an additional sessions judge who declared his crime as rarest of the rare. He was convicted under Sections 381, 302, 307, 324 and 427 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
On January 25 last year, Mane hijacked an ST bus from Swargate depot and went on a rampage, killing nine people and injuring 37 besides damaging over 25 vehicles.
During the course of trial while the prosecution maintained that Mane was in a complete sound state of mind when he committed the crime, the defence had claimed that Mane was suffering from a psychiatric disorder when he committed the act and should be given advantage under Section 84 of the IPC. The defence had also produced a Solapur-based psychiatrist Dr Dilip Burte before the court who claimed to have treated Mane for ‘mania’ for a period of over one year.
However, the court held that Mane visited Burte’s clinic just once and that Burte falsified the records to help the defence. The court had also served a notice on Burte for misleading the court.
Burte’s lawyer recently submitted in the court that whatever he said and the documents he submitted were true and bore his signatures.

Source : http://m.indianexpress.com/news/high-court-admits-mane-plea-against-death-penalty/1115038/

Dharampal's execution put on hold till May 22

HT Correspondent , Hindustan Times Chandigarh, May 06, 2013

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed the execution of murder convict Dharampal Singh till May 22. The Sonepat sessions court had, on May 5, 1997, awarded death sentence to Dharampal, 45, for the murder of five people. He was to be hanged on April 15 at Ambala Centraln Jail.
After moving the high court to seek commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment and restraining the authorities from carrying out his execution, the court had, on April 6, stayed his execution. He had taken the ground that the President took 14 years to reject his mercy petition filed in April 1999.
A division bench, comprising justice Surya Kant and justice Naresh Kumar Sanghi, adjourned the case for May 22 since the petitioner's advocate Navkiran Singh was not available due to some other assignment.
During the arguments, the court said the petitioner needed to file a review petition in the Supreme Court against apex court order of March 18, 1999, in which it had dismissed Dharampal's appeal.
The counsel appearing for the Haryana government submitted that Dharampal, in his petition, had taken the ground that his execution needed to be stayed since the Supreme Court was seized of the matter of a death sentence convict Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar. "The Supreme Court has dismissed Bhullar's petition," the government counsel said. Bhullar was sentenced to death for carrying out bomb blast, claiming nine lives outside the All-India Youth Congress headquarters in New Delhi in 1993.
THE CASE
On a complaint of an alleged rape victim, Dharampal, a native of Mohalla Panna in Gohana tehsil of Sonepat, was awarded 10 years' imprisonment on January 7, 1991. In 1993, when he was out on parole, he had murdered the alleged rape victim's father, mother, two brothers and a sister on June 4, 1993. The victim and her husband were able to save their lives. On November 19, 2003, the high court had acquitted Dharampal of rape charge after finding that it was "a case of consent".
 Source : http://www.hindustantimes.com/Punjab/chandigarh/Dharampal-s-execution-put-on-hold-till-May-22/SP-Article1-1055559.aspx

HC commutes death penalty of 2 to 30-year jail term

Express news service : Wed May 08 2013, 02:39 hrs
BOMBAY High Court Tuesday set aside death penalty of two persons who kidnapped and murdered a four-year-old boy in Navi Mumbai in 2004. The court sentenced both convicts to 30 years’ imprisonment.
A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode held that the case could not be included in the “rarest of rare” category as laid down by Supreme Court. The death sentence was awarded by a sessions court in March last year.
The accused — Nihal Ahmed Shaikh and Rafiq Mohammed Sayyed — are said to have kidnapped the boy, Nitesh Wadhwa- on April 24, 2004, from his residence in Vashi. A month later, police found Nitesh’s body of Nitesh after the accused were arrested. The accused had demanded a ransom of Rs 5.5 lakh from the boy’s father, Prakash Wadhwa.
“We are of the considered opinion that in the facts and circumstances of the instant case, it cannot be said to be of a rarest of rare nature warranting the extreme penalty of death,” the order said. The judges observed that the medical evidence did not indicate that the murder was committed in an unusually cruel manner.
They also observed that the accused did not have any criminal antecedents, and also that they come from the poor strata of society.
Both the accused lived in a room in Turbhe and are originally from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. They are currently lodged at Yerawada central prison in Pune. The judges took into account their young age — they were 25 and 22 years old respectively at the time of the offence.

 Source : http://m.indianexpress.com/news/hc-commutes-death-penalty-of-2-to-30year-jail-term/1112870/

Devenderpal Singh Bhullar's wife moves SC for suspending his execution

PTI | May 7, 2013, 01.56PM IST
NEW DELHI: 1993 Delhi blast convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's wife on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court seeking stay on execution of his death sentence till her review plea against its verdict is decided.

She submitted in her plea that she has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court verdict of April 12 in which the court had rejected her petition to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment on ground of delay on the part of the government in deciding his mercy plea.

Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) terrorist Bhullar was convicted and awarded death penalty for triggering a bomb blast here in September 1993, killing nine people and injuring 25 others, including then Youth Congress president M S Bitta.

The apex court had on March 26, 2002 dismissed Bhullar's appeal against the death sentence awarded by a trial court in August 2001 and endorsed by the Delhi high court in 2002.

He had filed a review petition which was also dismissed on December 17, 2002. Bhullar had then moved a curative petition which too had been rejected by the apex court on March 12, 2003.

Bhullar, meanwhile, had filed a mercy petition before the President on January 14, 2003. The President, after a lapse of over eight years, dismissed his mercy plea on May 25, 2011.

Citing his delay, he had again moved the apex court for commutation of the death sentence but his plea was rejected.

The apex court had on May one commuted the death sentence awarded to murder convict M N Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by then President Pratibha Patil.

The court had allowed the plea of Das who had approached it for commutation of his death sentence on the ground that the President had taken twelve years to decide his mercy plea.

Source : http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Devenderpal-Singh-Bhullars-wife-moves-SC-for-suspending-his-execution/articleshow/19928452.cms

Supreme Court commutes death sentence

Published: 1:58 pm, May 1, 2013 Story By: mattersindia.com

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said that the President’s office took too long to reject the clemency  petition of a prisoner on death row and hence  commuted the death sentence of a murderer to life imprisonment. In 1999 MN Das was convicted by the Supreme Court and sentenced to death. His mercy petition was rejected by President Prtibha Patil, 11 years after he filed it. Das had killed a man in Assam in 1990 then six years later while on bail murdered another. His lawyer has cited the delay in asking for the death sentence to be commuted, ndtv.com reports. Other lawyers of death row prisoners also maintain that the “delay is worse than death.”

The latest development comes contrary to the April 11 ruling when the Supreme Court turned down that same argument in the case of Punjab militant  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, prime accused  in a 1993 bomb blast in Delhi that killed nine people. Bhullar, a member of a separatist group, argued his death sentence should be commuted to life in prison due to the torment he’d suffered awaiting execution. Bhullar’s appeal was turned down by the President after eight years. In his case the Supreme Court had said that terrorists cannot seek mercy by citing inordinate delays in their appeals.

The latest verdict might have a bearing on the cases of more than 15 prisoners on death row. They include three men for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and four members of the gang led by sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. India was among four countries in the last year that resumed using the death penalty.

Since Pranab Mukherjee was appointed president in July he has rejected mercy petitions of at least seven people, leaving them at risk of execution, Amnesty International said. Two people have been hanged — Mumbai attack gunman Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri found guilty of participating in a strike on India’s parliament in 2001. Kasab’s was the country’s first execution since 2004.

Source: http://mattersindia.com/supreme-court-commutes-death-sentence/ [accessed 05th May 2013]

Man gets death penalty for killing three siblings

PTI | May 5, 2013, 02.14 PM IST

BILASPUR: A man has been sentenced to death by a local court here for abducting and killing three minor siblings in February 2011 in Ratnapur town of the district.

First additional district and sessions judge Neeta Yadav yesterday sentenced - Manoj Suryawanshi - to death for abducting and killing the children from his neighbourhood.

According to police, Suryawanshi had kidnapped his neighbour Shivlal Dhivar's children - Vijay (8), Ajay (6) and Sakshi (4)- on February 11, when they were returning from school.

The accused took them to a nearby field where he killed them by hitting them with stones.

He was arrested the next day. According to prosecution, the accused committed the crime to take revenge against Shivlal's brother Shivnath. Suryawanshi believed that his wife had eloped with Shivnath.  

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/Man-gets-death-penalty-for-killing-three-siblings/articleshow/19894498.cms [accessed on 5th May 2013]

SC commutes death sentence of M N Das , a condemned prisoner from Assam

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted death sentence of M N Das, a condemned prisoner from Assam, to life sentence. M N Das had been on death row for last 16 years. The apex court took into account the long delay in deciding the mercy plea as a ground for commuting Das's death sentence.

Recently, the SC had rejected a similar plea from Devinder Singh Bhullar, who was awarded death penalty for 1993 bomb blast in Delhi that killed 9. Das, while out on bail in another case, had beheaded one Harakanta Das at Fancy Bazaar in Assam and surrendered with the victim's head on April 24, 1996 and in 1997, the sessions court there had sentenced him to death.

His conviction and sentence was subsequently upheld by the Gauhati high court in 1998 and the Supreme Court in 1999. He had moved in 1999 a mercy plea, which remained pending for eleven years before the President and was rejected in 2011. Das had then filed a writ petition in the apex court pleading for commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment since he had already spent about 14 years in jail during the disposal of his petition seeking presidential clemency.

He is currently lodged in Jorhat Central Jail in Assam.
(With inputs from PTI)

Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-01/india/38956539_1_death-sentence-mercy-plea-m-n-das [accessed on 2nd May 2013]

Three get death sentences for rape and murder of four-year-old

ucanews.com reporter, Bhopal India April 29, 2013

A court in central Madhya Pradesh state sentenced three men to death for the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl on Friday in a case which has attracted less international attention than the more recent rape of a five-year-old in New Delhi but has prompted outrage in India.
In chaotic scenes, the crowd outside the courthouse in Indore, the state capital, tried to attack the three defendants – named as Babu, Jitrenda and Sunny – but were held back by police.
Judge Indra Singh called the crime the “rarest of the rare” after handing down the three death sentences despite an appeal by the defense who said the men were young and deserved leniency. All three are in their early twenties.
Autorickshaw driver Babu and his two unemployed friends were found guilty of abducting the four-year-old victim after she accompanied her father to a hospital in Indore for treatment for his tuberculosis in June last year.
After watching a marriage procession late in the evening, the girl then went missing. Her body was later found with a smashed skull in a drain close to a police station.
Police tracked down the three men responsible after they left a cheque and a note near the body in an apparent attempt to pay compensation. They were captured about 50 miles south of Indore in the town of Omkareshwar preparing to flee, police said.
The case is among the most gruesome in a string of high-profile recent rape cases in India that have sparked outrage inside the country and lurid headlines in international media.
Last month, a Swiss woman was raped in Madhya Pradesh during a cycle tour and on Saturday a six-year-old girl was raped in New Delhi in a public toilet, just a few days after a five-year-old was abducted and raped during a two-day ordeal.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come under rising criticism from rival political parties with every new case, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, which has recorded the highest number of rape cases in the country in recent years. Government statistics show there are nine rapes a day and 25 gang rapes every month there.
Madhya Pradesh opposition Congress Party leader Ajay Singh said that the BJP has lost the "moral right to continue" in office as an “anarchy-like situation" prevails in the state with no safety for women and children.
“What we see is nothing but the absolute collapse of law and order,” said Badal Saroj, secretary of the Communist Party’s state unit.
In response to criticism, the government has attempted to fast-track the prosecution of rape cases, while in Madhya Pradesh State Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has ordered the establishment of a new 'neighborhood watch' scheme of community law enforcement modeled on the UK.
Source : http://www.ucanews.com/news/three-get-death-sentences-for-rape-and-murder-of-four-year-old/68133 

Bhopal : Death sentence in 6 cases from January 2013 till date

Ankur Sirothia, TNN | Apr 27, 2013
BHOPAL: In Madhya Pradesh, charge-sheets are being put up in courts by the police after completing investigation into cases of identified crimes against women within time-limit, the officials said.

From January 2013 till date, death sentence has been awarded in 6 cases, life imprisonment in 42 cases, over 10-year sentence in 59 cases and below 10-year sentences has been awarded in 377 cases. Accused in total 484 cases have been awarded punishment during this period.

During year 2012, convicts were sentenced by sessions courts in 808 cases of crimes against women. Of these, 2 were awarded death sentence, 137 life imprisonment, 137 over 10-year and 241 over 5 years and convicts in 291 cases were awarded less than 5-year imprisonment.

During year 2013, death sentence has been awarded to Rajkumar Urao, convict of rape and murder under police station Nainpur in Mandla district, Dilip Kumar Bankar under Jahangirabad police Station Bhopal, Panjam Lodhi under Belkhera police station Jabalpur, Anokhi under Khandwa police station, Nandkishore Bankar under TT Nagar police station Bhopal and Babu alias Ketan, Sunnay alias Devendra and Jitendra under MIG police station Indore, the officials added.  

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Death-sentence-in-6-cases-from-January-2013-till-date/articleshow/19759473.cms