Abolish Death Penalty India: Inmates on death row under strict vigil (Punjab)

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Inmates on death row under strict vigil (Punjab)

Oct 4, 2016, 1:43 AM, Patiala, October 3
Manish Sirhindi

The incident

Jasbir and Vikram Singh, along with the former’s wife Sonia, had been awarded death sentence by a Hoshiarpur court in September 2005 after they were found guilty of kidnapping and then murdering Abhi Verma (16) for ransom in February 2005.
They had demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh from Abhi’s goldsmith father Ravi Verma. Abhi was injected with chloroform and fortwin in heavy doses after tying his both hands and legs and sealing his mouth with a tape to prevent detection of offence.

The in-house gallows on the premises of the Patiala Central Jail, which are a remnant from colonial times and were last put to use in June 1989, are likely to see the hanging of Jasbir Singh and his brother-in-law, Vikram Singh, whose mercy petition was recently rejected by the President of India. The two were convicted for kidnapping and then murdering Abhi Verma (16), son of Hoshiarpur-based goldsmith Ravi Verma in 2005.

The last hanging in Punjab was executed on June 16, 1989, when two brothers from Dayalgarh village of Sangrur, Gurcharan Singh and Pritam Singh, were hanged in the Central Jail, Patiala. The hanging was performed by hangman Kaloo, who was specially summoned from the Tihar Jail in Delhi for the job.Meanwhile, according to sources in the jail, the two inmates have been put under strict vigil and their movement has been restricted to 32-chakkiyan cell, where they have spent their time while in prison.

A file photo of the Patiala Central Jail where Jasbir Singh and Vikram Singh have been kept under tight security.

The sources said the two were now being allowed to move out of their cell only for an hour in the morning and evening. Besides, a jail guard has been put outside their cell to keep a round the clock watch. Jasbir and Vikram Singh, along with former’s wife Sonia, had been awarded death sentence by a Hoshiarpur court in September 2005 after they were found guilty of kidnapping and then murdering Abhi Verma (16) for ransom in February 2005. They had demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh from Abhi’s goldsmith father Ravi Verma. Abhi was injected with chloroform and fortwin in heavy doses after tying his both hands and legs and sealing his mouth with a tape to prevent detection of offence.

The trial court had on September 3, 2005, convicted the trio under Sections 302 (murder), 364-A (kidnapping for ransom), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced all of them to death. Later, the High Court had on May 30, 2008, confirmed the death sentence awarded to the three accused. The convicts filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, which on January 25, 2010, upheld the death sentence in case of Vikram and Jasbir. However, Sonia’s death sentence was commuted to life sentence.

Following this, the duo moved another petition in the High Court challenging the legality of convicting them under Section 364-A of the IPC. However, the HC Bench rejected their petition, after which they were handed death warrants, which were to be executed on October 5, 2012. They moved Supreme Court and the death warrants were stayed till October 12, 2012. In between, they moved a mercy petition before the President of India and the execution was delayed. The President of India returned their plea asking them to approach the Punjab Governor. In 2013, the Punjab Governor dismissed their plea and they again moved a plea before the President of India, who dismissed their plea in August this year.

The matter was again taken up in the Hoshiarpur Sessions Court and on September 27, the court re-issued their death warrants, which are now to be executed on October 25 at 9 am on the premises of the Patiala Central Jail. Jail Superintendent Bhupinderjit Singh Virk said they had informed the DGP (Prison) about the preparations being made in this regard.

Abhi Verma

Time line

The trial court had on September 3, 2005, convicted the trio under Sections 302 (murder), 364-A (kidnapping for ransom), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced all of them to death.
Later, the High Court had on May 30, 2008, confirmed the death sentence awarded to the three accused. The convicts filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, which on January 25, 2010, upheld the death sentence in case of Vikram and Jasbir. However, Sonia’s death sentence was commuted to life sentence.
Following this, the duo moved another petition in the High Court challenging the legality of convicting them under Section 364-A of the IPC. However, the HC Bench rejected their petition, after which they were handed death warrants, which were to be executed on October 5, 2012.
They moved the Supreme Court and the death warrants were stayed till October 12, 2012. In between, they moved a mercy petition before the President of India and the execution was delayed.
The President of India returned their plea asking them to approach the Punjab Governor. In 2013, the Punjab Governor dismissed their plea and they again moved a plea before the President of India, who dismissed their plea in August this year.
The matter was again taken up in the Hoshiarpur Sessions Court and on September 27, the court re-issued their death warrants, which are now to be executed on October 25 at 9 am on the premises of the Patiala Central Jail.

Source: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/chandigarh/community/inmates-on-death-row-under-strict-vigil/304611.html (Accessed 20 December 2018)

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The Death Penalty Scenario in India

India is one of the 193 countries that retains death penalty. There has always been a few imminent judges who have pronounced compelling verdicts upholding the rights of prisoners on death row. There has been increasing debate in various platforms advocating abolition of death penalty or at least to rethink sentencing policies in India. The Indian government has however always been committed to the retention of the death penalty, irrespective of their political ideology. India has voted against a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) draft resolution on the use of death penalty, saying it goes against the statutory law of the country where an execution is carried out in the "rarest of rare" cases. India retains the death penalty as punishment for a number of crimes including murder, kidnapping, terrorism, desertion, inducement to suicide of a minor or a mentally-retarded person and has more recently in 2013 come to include the offence of rape in certain circumstances. Most recently, there is an outrage over child rape and murder.

After observing an unofficial moratorium of 8 years in India, the Indian Government in November 2012 carried out the execution of Ajmal Kasab, convicted in the Mumbai attacks case, without public knowledge. This was followed by the secret execution of Afzal Guru, convicted in the Parliament attack case of 2001, in February 2013, under similar circumstances, without intimating his immediate family or affording a chance of judicial review. In both cases, the executions were carried out under covert operations conducted by the Government immediately upon rejection of their mercy petitions. Before these executions, the last execution to be carried out in India was that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004 who was convicted of rape and murder and which sentence was carried out after he had spent 13 years in solitary confinement. Following this, several mercy petitions of death row convicts have come to be rejected. The fear of execution of such convicts is imminent. Bolstered by the Government's unapologetic conduct and public outcry, especially in recent cases of rape and murder reported in the country, the courts are continuing to hand down death sentences at an alarming rate.

In the recent past, there have been a few empirical studies (mainly four) conducted with prisoners on death row. This has highlighted the situation of prisoners on death row.

(1) Most recently the India Exclusion Report 2017-18 found that fair trial rights and guarantees are reduced to a nullity and seeks to breach the citadel of the collective silence. It further said that Convicts on death row in India belong to groups marginalised along the axes of caste, religion, economic vulnerability and educational deprivation, and their fair trial rights, though a part of the Right to Life guaranteed by the Constitution, are invariably non-existent, a survey of 371 out of the 385 persons living under the death sentence and their families has revealed.

(2) Another study was The Death Penalty Research Project (2015) which was conceived with an aim to document the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India and map their experience within the criminal justice system.

There were two other academic studies that were done conducted by Dr. Reena Mary George –

(3)“Voices of prisoners surviving the death row in India” (2014) done through the University of Vienna under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Christoph Reinprecht (Sociology) and Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak (Law and Ex-United Nations Rapporteur on Torture). George’s research highlights three salient features, namely: poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation are antecedent to death penalty; death penalty is a constructed account by the state machinery; and prisoners on death row situate dignity higher in the juxtaposition of death and dignity.

(4) Another one “Death Penalty – A Human Rights Perspective” (2009) done through the University of Mumbai under the guidance of Retired Justice Hosbet Suresh. This was a study in Maharashtra with the objectives to firstly study the impact of death penalty on the social, mental, and physical being of the inmate and secondly, to study the perception of opinion leaders on death penalty with reference to human rights. All the above reports are public documents.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Prison Statistics 2015, there are 101 prisoners sentenced to death. The actual figure of sentences originally awarded is much higher considering the death sentences of 49 convicts came to be commuted to life imprisonment in the said period. As of today, almost in 2019, the figures are unknown through government statistics, however, research centres claim this figure to be around 371 convicts. During the 1980s the Supreme Court sought to restrict the use of the death penalty by characterizing it as a punishment reserved only for the “rarest of the rare” cases. The doctrine has not had the desired effect. According to a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, Rajindar Sachar: “after the rarest of rare doctrine was introduced in 1980, the Supreme Court confirmed death penalty in 40 per cent of cases in the period 1980-90 while it was 37.7 per cent between 1970 and 1980. For the high courts it rose from 59 per cent in 1970-80 to 65 per cent during 1980-90”. Over the past two decades the death penalty has been extended to include more crimes and been handed down with increasing frequency.

Most recently while commuting a sentence in Supreme Court (2018), Justice Joseph did not seek the reconsideration of the Bachan Singh judgment, but only sought to re-examine the purpose and practice of the death penalty, and whether as a punishment, it serves any goal at all. In other words, the death penalty can continue to remain constitutionally valid because of the Bachan Singh judgment, but its application in substantive cases coming before the court must be restricted to only those cases which meet the criteria laid down in that case.

While updating the blog and conducting my own empirical studies, I observed the heinous nature of the crimes that were committed and thought about the families, about their loss, about the victims who for no fault of their own died. If I lost my relative or a dear friend, would I still oppose death penalty and would I still advocate to abolish the death sentence? Having worked in the criminal justice system and also having the seen the other side, where often it is the marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed who are on death row makes me want to advocate for abolition of this punishment. Victims should definitely get justice for their loss, for their pain. No one should escape the rule of law. As long as humanity exists; crime will exist. Should we not re-consider our sentencing policies?

Reena Mary George

Abolish Death Penalty India

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Inmates on death row under strict vigil (Punjab)

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