Abolish Death Penalty India: Bhopal

Showing posts with label Bhopal. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Madhya Pradesh high court commutes death sentence

TNN | Mar 28, 2019, 04.26 AM IST

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: A division bench of MP high court on Tuesday commuted death sentence of a person to life imprisonment till death. He was held guilty for murder of his mother. The high court, however, held that crime of the convict was not among “rarest of the rare” and was caused by momentary anger.

The trial court at Narsinghpur, while ordering the death sentence for the accused, had said that the brutality with which the accused Ashok Rajak, 23, killed his mother just because she woke him up from sleep made the crime “rarest of the rate” and it won’t be appropriate to show any mercy towards him because there was no possibility of him becoming an improved human being in course of time.

The division bench of Justice J K Maheshwari and Justice A K Shrivastava, however, disagreed with the findings of sessions court and said the crime was more of impulsive in nature and not ‘rarest of the rare’ and reduced his sentence to life imprisonment till death.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/hc-commutes-death-sentence/articleshow/68605399.cms (accessed on 29 May 2019)

Friday, February 6, 2015

HC upholds death to minor's rapist-killer

TNN | Jul 16, 2014, 12.46 AM IST BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh high court (MPHC) on Tuesday upheld the death sentence awarded to Feroz Khan, charged with rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl in Seoni district. Double bench of MPHC comprising Justice Ajit Singh and Justice NK Gupta said the act was rarest of the rare and upheld the decision of the district and sessions court, which awarded capital punishment to Feroz in October 26 last year. The girl was abducted from her house in Ghansore on April 17 and abandoned in the fields after being raped. Later, on finding her lying unconscious on the fields, villagers took the girl to a hospital in Jabalpur. After her condition deteriorated on April 20, she was airlifted to Care Hospital of Nagpur, where she succumbed on April 30. Feroz, a welder working in Jhabua Power Plant, is a resident of Dhimra village in Bihar's Banka district. He was arrested from his maternal uncles' place in Hussainabad in Bhagalpur district of Bihar on April 23. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/HC-upholds-death-to-minors-rapist-killer/articleshow/38442294.cms [last accessed 06.02.2015]

Monday, May 20, 2013

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

Wednesday, May 1, 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

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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