Abolish Death Penalty India: May 2025

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Maharashtra - New Double Gallows at Nagpur Central Jail

Summary - 31 May 2025

🏛️ New Double Gallows at Nagpur Central Jail — Key Points

📍 Facility Upgrade

Nagpur Central Jail is finishing construction of a modern “double gallows” — a state-of-the-art execution setup that can hang two death row convicts at the same time. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News
This replaces the older gallows and aims to address procedural and technical issues previously faced during executions. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News
The new gallows platform measures 2.5 × 1.2 meters, and only final plaster work remains; officials expect the execution area to be fully operational within about two months. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

📜 Project Background

The Ministry of Home Affairs approved the project in February 2020, and the Public Works Department (PWD) is handling the construction. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News
A formal work order was issued in December 2022, and the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur is providing technical guidance for the gallows system. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News
A team of experts has inspected the site, and the complete system was expected to be ready very soon. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

📌 Historical Context

The last execution at Nagpur Central Jail was in 2015, when Yakub Memon (convicted in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts) was hanged. Challenges faced during that execution were a key reason for planning the new facility. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

📊 Broader Capital Punishment Info (from the same article)

The piece also noted that only a minority of countries worldwide still practice the death penalty, with India among about 55 such countries. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News
It said India sentences an average of 131 people to death annually, with several states contributing to this figure, and mentioned that 544 people were on death row across India at the time of writing. Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Friday, May 30, 2025

Uttar Pradesh - Two men get death penalty for killing minor sisters

30 May 2025

Mohd Dilshad

Summary:

A special SC/ST court in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, awarded the death penalty to two men for the murder of two minor sisters in a case described by the court as falling under the “rarest of the rare” category.

The victims were two sisters aged 6 and 12 years, who were attacked and killed while they were asleep at their home. During the attack, the parents of the girls were also assaulted when they tried to intervene and save their children. They sustained serious injuries but survived.

The two convicts, Vikas Singh and Lalu Pal, were known to the family and had shared a meal with them earlier in the night before carrying out the crime in the early hours of the morning.

Vikas Singh and Lalu Pal (Source: Instagram)

The investigation revealed that the murders were part of a planned conspiracy linked to a property dispute. A relative of the family, identified as Sone, who lives in Dubai, allegedly hired the two men to eliminate the family. An amount of ₹2 lakh was promised, of which ₹20,000 was paid in advance.

The court noted the brutality of the crime, the vulnerability of the victims, and the premeditated nature of the attack while awarding the death sentence. The judge observed that the manner in which the crime was committed shocked the conscience of society.

The defence has stated that the convicts are likely to challenge the verdict in a higher court.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/2-men-get-death-penalty-for-killing-minor-sisters/articleshow/121503466.cms

Kerala - Murdered wife at slaughterhouse over infidelity suspicion

31 May 2025

Summary

Najbuddin alias Babu, a 44-year-old native of Chudalaparambu in Parappanangadi, has been sentenced to death by the Manjeri Additional District Sessions Court for the murder of his wife.

Crime: He murdered his first wife, 30-year-old Raheena, by slitting her throat in his meat shop near Anjappura Beach Road on July 23, 2017.

Raheena (L); Najbuddin alias Babu (R)

Motive: The murder was allegedly driven by suspicions of infidelity.

Aftermath: After the murder, Babu stole his wife's gold jewelry and went into hiding, traveling across different cities before being arrested at Tanur Railway Station two days later.

Sentence: Pronounced by Judge A.V. Teles, the court found him guilty under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to capital punishment along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

Source: https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=1543879&u=murdered-wife-at-slaughterhouse-over-infidelity-suspicion-court-awards-death-sentence-to-husband

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Madhya Pradesh - High Court commutes death sentence in child murder case

25 May 2025

The Madhya Pradesh High Court commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of kidnapping and murdering his six-year-old nephew, sentencing him instead to life imprisonment till his natural death. The judgment was delivered by a division bench comprising Justice Vivek Agrawal and Justice Dev Narayan Mishra.

Justice Vivek Agrawal

The case dates back to March 12, 2019, when the child, Shivkant Prajapati, a resident of Rahikvara village under the Nagod police station in Satna district, was kidnapped by his uncle, Anutav. During the incident, the co-accused Vibha alias Vidya Prajapati contacted the child’s family and demanded a ransom of ₹2 lakh.

The prosecution established that the uncle strangled the child to death. The Nagod trial court had earlier held the case to be among the “rarest of the rare” and awarded the death penalty to the uncle, while sentencing the co-accused woman to life imprisonment.

Justice Dev Narayan Mishra

The matter was later referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence, and the convict also filed an appeal challenging the punishment. During the hearing, the High Court noted that the accused was 21 years old at the time of the offence and that the murder was committed for monetary gain.

After examining the facts, the High Court concluded that the case did not fall under the “rarest of the rare” category and accordingly commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment till natural death. The court also set aside the life sentence of the co-accused woman, citing a lack of sufficient evidence against her.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/hc-commutes-death-sentence-in-child-murder-case/articleshow/121385350.cms

Friday, May 16, 2025

May 16, 2025

Summary:

A Yamunanagar fast-track court sentenced 24-year-old Rajesh Kumar alias Nirmal to death for the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl on September 20, 2024. The girl, a Class 2 student, went missing while playing with friends, and her body was found in nearby sugarcane fields. Based on eyewitness information, police registered an FIR and arrested the accused. Rajesh Kumar was convicted under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the POCSO Act. In addition to the death penalty, he was fined and sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment on a separate charge, with all sentences running concurrently. The death sentence is subject to confirmation by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Convict Rajesh Kumar (HT photo)

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/ynagar-man-gets-death-penalty-for-six-year-old-s-rapemurder-101747337010101.html

Supreme Court acquits man sentenced to death for rape and murder of 3-year-old (Maharashtra)

Summary (16 May 2025)

The Supreme Court of India recently acquitted a man (Ramkirat Munilal Goud) who was on death row for the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl, citing a lack of credible evidence and a flawed police investigation. The Court ordered his immediate release after he had spent 12 years in jail.

Case Details

The case dates back to September 2013, when a three-year-old girl went missing in Thane, Maharashtra, and her body was found two days later in a pond. A watchman (the appellant) was arrested and convicted by a trial court in 2019, with the death sentence upheld by the Bombay High Court in 2021.

Supreme Court Ruling

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta found significant lapses in the prosecution's case, concluding that the chain of circumstantial evidence was not complete or unbroken.

Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta

Key issues identified by the Court included:

Flawed Investigation: The Court heavily criticized the investigative officers, suggesting they made the appellant a "scapegoat" and intentionally screened the truth from the record.
Unreliable Evidence: The "last-seen-together" evidence, extrajudicial confession, and forensic evidence (soil samples) were all deemed unreliable and inconsistent, with major procedural lapses noted.
Lack of Proof: The prosecution failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, a fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence. The Court emphasized that conviction cannot be based on moral convictions or conjectures, but on clear and unimpeachable evidence.

The Supreme Court set aside the conviction and death sentence, underscoring the necessity of a fair trial and meticulous adherence to legal standards of proof, especially in cases involving capital punishment.

Source: https://www.barandbench.com/news/supreme-court-acquits-man-sentenced-to-death-for-rape-and-murder-of-3-year-old

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Andhra Pradesh - Man awarded death sentence after third murder in Palnadu

May 15, 2025

Summary

A court in Narasaraopet, Palnadu district awarded the death sentence to 30‑year‑old Tanniru Ankamma Rao for his third murder committed in May 2023. The conviction relates to the killing of a 32‑year‑old woman beggar, Sk Salma, whose body was found with her head smashed with a boulder along a road near a furniture shop under the One‑Town police station limits. The police investigation revealed that Rao murdered Salma while she was sleeping near the shop and stole some cash from her, with CCTV footage later linking him to two other murders in May 2023, where he similarly smashed the heads of two men who were sleeping in open places.

Narasaraopet Magistrate Court Source: Justdial

Rao had previously been sentenced to life imprisonment twice, in April and May of the same year, for the murders of the two men. Although he had earlier been accused in another murder case, he was acquitted in that matter. In the latest hearing on May 15, 2025, the judge of the 13th Additional District Court, N. Satya Sri, imposed the death penalty for the woman’s murder. Rao’s pattern of targeting vulnerable people (beggars) and attempting to hide their identities by smashing their heads was cited in the case records.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vijayawada/man-awarded-death-sentence-after-third-murder-in-palnadu/articleshow/121195107.cms

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Karnataka man gets death for murdering four

14 May 2025

Vinaya Bhat (L) and Shridhar Bhat (R) -Father

Summary: A Uttara Kannada court sentenced Vinaya Bhat to death for murdering four members of a family in Halyani Haduvalli village, Bhatkal taluk on February 24, 2023. The victims were Shambhu Venkataramana Bhat, his wife Mahadevi, their son Raghavendra (Raju) Bhat, and daughter‑in‑law Kusuma Raghavendra Bhat. The murders stemmed from a property dispute following the earlier death of a family member. The court also sentenced Vinaya’s father, Shridhar Janardhan Bhat, to life imprisonment for his role in the crime.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangaluru/court-gives-death-sentence-to-man-for-killing-four-of-a-family/articleshow/121145042.cms

Monday, May 5, 2025

Bihar court sentences two persons to death for rape-murder of 8-yr-old Dalit girl

Madhubani (Bihar), May 31 (PTI)

A court in Bihar's Madhubani district on Saturday sentenced two persons (Sushil Rai and Om Prakash Jha) to death after convicting them for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Dalit girl. Special judge for SC/ST cases and Additional District and Sessions Judge, Syed Mohammad Fazlul Bari, also slapped a fine of Rs 1.2 lakh each on the two convicts -- Sushil Kumar Rai and Om Prakash Jha.

The case pertains to the incident that took place on June 22, 2023 in Jaynagar police station area. Speaking to reporters after the verdict, special public prosecutor Sapan Kumar Singh, said, "It was a 'rarest of the rare' case and the prosecution urged the court to award the death penalty. Defense counsel argued in favour of the accused, but the court upheld the prosecution's demand for the death sentence to both accused."

Narrating the incident, he said, "The deceased's family members were not at home. The accused lured the girl to Jaynagar market. Then they took her to a room in Koshi Colony, where they raped her. When the girl tried to raise an alarm, the accused strangled her to death. The very next day, police arrested the accused and recovered the girl's body." Family members of the accused refused to interact with the media.

Source: https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2025/05/31/lgc3-bh-rape-death-sentence.html

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Gujarat - Ankleshwar Court Hands Death Penalty In ‘Rarest Of Rare’ Rape And Murder Case Of 10 Year Old Girl

3rd May 2025 at 2:29 PM

Ankleshwar: In a milestone judgment, the Ankleshwar Additional Sessions Court on Friday sentenced 36-year-old Vijay Paswan a punishment of “hanging until death” for the abduction, rape, and murder of a 10-year-old girl, a case the court declared to fall under the “rarest of rare” category. This marks the first instance of capital punishment for such a crime in the district.

The trial was concluded in a record 72 days following the framing of charges. The brutal crime, committed on December 16, 2024, sparked public outrage and drew parallels with the 2012 Delhi gang rape. The young victim, the daughter of a migrant family from Jharkhand, died on December 23 at SSG Hospital in Vadodara after suffering severe injuries from the assault.

The police said the girl's father and the accused know each other. Source: NDTV News

According to Special Public Prosecutor and Bharuch District Government Pleader P.B. Pandya, the child endured a “barbaric” assault. Paswan, a neighbor of the victim in the Jhagadia industrial area and a father himself, reportedly hit her with a stone, dragged her, threw her over a wall, and raped her. He inflicted bite and knife wounds on her face and caused fatal internal injuries with a sharp object. Despite undergoing multiple surgeries at Bharuch Civil Hospital and later in Vadodara, the girl could not be saved.

A total of 38 prosecution witnesses were examined, with none turning hostile. A critical piece of evidence was the dying declaration of the victim, recorded as she was being brought into Bharuch Civil Hospital, which played a pivotal role in the conviction. The court accepted the prosecution’s submission that the sheer brutality of the act met the threshold of the “rarest of rare” doctrine, justifying the death penalty. Paswan was convicted under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including 137(1)(b) (kidnapping a child), 65(2) (rape of a minor under 12), 103(1) (murder), 109(1) (attempt to murder), and 118(1) (causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons), among others. He was also charged under relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Additionally, the court directed that the victim’s family be granted Rs 10 lakh as compensation under the Gujarat Victim Compensation Scheme. Pandya said, “The court categorically mentioned that the accused must be hanged unto death… It is a record verdict in the case that will send out a strong message in the society and deter criminals.”

Source: https://english.bombaysamachar.com/gujarat/ankleshwar-court-hands-death-penalty-in-rarest-of-rare-rape-and-murder-case-of-10-year-old-girl/

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