Abolish Death Penalty India: death penalty bihar

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Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Bihar court awards death penalty to man for killing wife

29 MARCH 2019

Gopalganj (Bihar), Mar 29 A court here on Friday awarded death sentence to a person for killing his wife in the year 2007.

The court also sentenced for life the spouse of his younger brother in the same case. According to public prosecutor Suresh Dubey, the order was passed by District Judge Shailendra Kumar who was hearing the case lodged by Abdul Jabbar, the father of the deceased, Sanjeeda Khatoon. Jabbar is a resident of Dulduliya village under the Manjha police station area of the district. His daughter had got married to Naseeruddin Ahmed of Hardiya village under the Thawe police station area in the year 2003.

According to the complainant, her daughter had been facing harassment for dowry after her marriage and she was poisoned to death on March 17, 2007. In the FIR, Jabbar named his son-in-law, the latter's father Maqsood Alam and the wife of younger brother Salamun Nesha as accused. During the course of trial, Alam passed away. The court held the other two accused as guilty of murder, awarded death penalty to the husband of the deceased and life sentence and Rs 50,000 fine to her sister-in-law. CORR NAC SNS DPB

Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/bihar-court-awards-death-penalty-to-man-for-killing-wife/1505702 (accessed on 29 May 2019)

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Court awards death sentence to 3 men for rape, murder of girl (Bihar)

16 FEBRUARY 2018 Last Updated at 12:55 AM | SOURCE: PTI

Purnea (Bihar), Feb 15 A court here today awarded death sentence to three persons for the rape and murder of a minor girl in 2012.

Additional District Judge Satyendra Rajak awarded capital punishment to Sonu, Rupesh and Prashant for the murder of a 12-year-old girl whom they had raped and brutalised - mutilating and inserting foreign objects inside her private parts. The court held that the heinous offence, that took place on May 11, 2012, in Badhara Kothi police station area, fell in the "rarest of rare" category and awarded death sentence to the three accused. The court also slapped them with a fine of Rs three lakh each.

Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/court-awards-death-sentence-to-3-men-for-rape-murder-of-girl/1254244 (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Three convicts who ‘escaped’ from Bihar prison held in Maharashtra (Bihar)

Written by Gargi Verma |Mumbai |Published: January 5, 2018 3:25:24 am

In December 2016, five convicts lodged in the Buxar central prison broke out of the jail.

Thane Police Crime Branch has arrested three convicts who were on the run allegedly after escaping from a prison in Bihar. One of them, a murder convict, had worked at a housekeeping firm in Mumbai, the police said. The Thane Crime Branch unit I and the Bihar Police, in a joint operation, arrested Parjit Kumar, Sonu Pandey and Devdhari Rai. While Pandey and Rai were taken by the Bihar Police, Kumar has been arrested by the Thane police. Kumar was arrested in 1998 for a triple murder, sources said. He had been sentenced to death, but was granted a pardon by the President, who commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, said officers from Thane police.

In December 2016, five convicts lodged in the Buxar central prison broke out of the jail. The five had used their clothes and bedsheets to form a rope. The entire plan was orchestrated by Kumar,” said an officer from Thane Crime Branch. According to the Thane police, the Bihar Police contacted them regarding Kumar in 2017. “Kumar had allegedly called the eyewitnesses of the murder case and had threatened them. He even demanded Rs 10 lakh from them for sending him to prison. These calls were made from Thane, Bihar police told us,” said a senior officer from Thane police. The Thane Crime Branch had been trying to trace Kumar for the past three months, sources said. “He was working in housekeeping for a private firm but under a different name. He had not given the right address and was changing his house constantly,” the officer said.

However, he was finally nabbed on the night of January 3 from Cidco bus stop in Thane, police said. “Based on a lot of technical and human intelligence, Kumar was nabbed while he was waiting for a bus to move out of Thane. He was arrested from the bus stop at around 1 am on January 4,” said DCP (Crime) Abhishek Trimukhe. After he was nabbed, he revealed the locations of Rai and Saran, who were nabbed by the Bihar Police from other places in Bihar and Mumbai, sources said. Kumar had allegedly broken away from his family and was living with a forged identity in Thane, Delhi, Agra and even Nepal, police said.

“He was accused of killing two women and a man in Bihar in 1998 and the crime was heinous enough for him to be sentenced to death. He has shown no remorse and has even threatened the eye witnesses,” said an officer from the Thane Crime Branch. “Bihar Police shall take his custody soon… and find the other two accused who had ran away with him,” the officer added.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/maharashtra-three-convicts-who-escaped-from-bihar-prison-held-5012186/ (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Man gets death sentence for raping, murdering 3-yr-old girl (Bihar)

Published: November 29, 2017 9:40 PM IST

A court here today awarded death sentence to a man for raping and murdering a three- year-old girl in Bihar’s Nalanda district three years ago.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Shashi Bhushan Singh, who is also the special judge, POCSO, awarded the capital punishment to Rohan Bind, holding him guilty of the heinous crime. Bind had raped and killed the girl in Babhanburai Tola village under Hilsa police station of Nalanda district in September, 2014. An FIR was lodged in this connection by the girl’s father Dukharan.

Dukharan was a neighbour of the in-laws of Bind, who had visited their house and taken the child along under the pretext of getting her biscuits from the market. The girl’s mutilated, blood-soaked body was recovered a few hours later, about a kilometre away from the village.

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.

Source: https://www.india.com/news/agencies/man-gets-death-sentence-for-raping-murdering-3-yr-old-girl-2693485/ (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Court awards man death penalty for raping and murdering two-and-a- half-year-old girl (Bihar)

Updated: Nov 16, 2017 22:26 IST

Press Trust of India

Motihari: A court here has awarded death sentence to a man for raping and killing a two-and-a- half-year-old girl six years ago.

Additional District and Sessions Judge DN Yadav held Dhruv Sahni guilty of the rape and murder on Thursday and awarded him death sentence on the ground that the case fell under the “rarest of rare” category. The court handed out the death penalty to the convict for the murder, under section 302 of the IPC. It also sentenced Sahni to 20 years of imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on him for the rape, under section 376, IPC.

The convict was also sentenced to seven years in jail under section 201, IPC for causing disappearance of evidence in the case. The court, however, acquitted the three other accused in the case for lack of evidence against them. The convict, a resident of Akauna village of the district, has been lodged in the Motihari central jail since his arrest soon after the incident was reported in 2011.

As per the prosecution, Sahni took the toddler to a field, where he raped her before slitting her throat with a knife on March 21, 2011. The family members of the child were watching television at a neighbour’s house when the crime took place. The body of the girl was found from a wheat field the next day and subsequently, an FIR was lodged by her father, Sagar Sahni, against four persons, including Sahni. The police had recovered the knife used in the crime from the spot and the convict had confessed to his crime after his arrest on March 30, 2011, according to the prosecution.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bihar-court-awards-man-death-penalty-for-raping-and-murdering-toddler/story-TZNH037sMHTYCLJmVlWiNJ.html (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Court awards death sentence to man convicted for rape, murder of child (Bihar)

Published: November 16, 2017 15:48

Lata Rani, Correspondent

Patna: A local court in Bihar has handed out death penalty to a man found guilty for cruelly murdering a two-and-a-half-year-old baby after rape six years back. The judgement which has been described as the “rarest of rare” comes amid a spate of rape cases gripping the eastern Indian state in recent months.

The court of Dhruv Narayn Yadav in Bihar’s east Champaran district awarded the sentence of hanging the accused till death on Wednesday soon after he was convicted by the court in the horrible rape-cum-murder case. The court also imposed a monetary fine on the accused identified as Dhruv Sahani. “We had sought for maximum punishment in the case since the crime committed here was inhumane and heinous and also we had sufficient evidence to prove the charges against the accused. And, the court eventually awarded death penalty to the accused terming it as the ‘rarest of rare’ case,” a local government council Subhash Chandra Prasad Yadav told the media Thursday.

The judgement comes more than six years after the incident had taken place. According to court records, the baby was playing outside her house at a village under Chiraiya police station in East Champaran district when the accused took her to a nearby field, raped her and then slit her throat with a sharp knife. He also tried to destroy the evidence before fleeing the scene. Reports said the victim’s family members were at home as it the Hindu festival of Holi time when the accused took advantage of the situation. Initially, a missing person case was registered with the police, but soon it was converted into murder after her body was recovered from the field.

Incidents of rape remain a matter of grave concern in Bihar, and according to an official report, a total of 922 cases of rape have been reported till September this year. Last year, altogether, 1,008 incidents of rape had been reported, followed by 1,041 in 2015, 1,127 in 2014 and 1,128 in 2013. Similarly, 927 cases were reported in 2012, 934 in 2011, 795 in 2010, 929 in 2009, 1,041 in 2008, 1,122 in 2007, 1,083 in 2006 and 973 in 2005 — the year when chief minister Nitish Kumar came to power doing away with 15 years of Rashtriya Janata Dal regime. Criminal incidents refuse to die down despite repeated claims by the Nitish Kumar government. The gravity of the situation is underlined from the fact that a total of 173,645 incidents of cognisable offences have been reported till September this year. Last year, a total of 189,681 cognisable offences had been reported.

Source: https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/court-hands-out-death-penalty-to-man-for-killing-2-year-old-after-rape-1.2125662 (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Five Maoists sentenced to death by Munger court in Bihar

May 29, 2017 12:45 IST

Press Trust of India, Munger

A Munger court on Thursday awarded death sentence to five Maoists after convicting them of murder of two CRPF jawans in an ambush during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar.

Additional sessions judge (I) Jyoti Swarup Srivastava also slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on each of the convicts - Vipin Mandal, Adhiklal Pandit, Ratu Koda, Wano Koda and Manu Koda. According to the prosecution, about 50 Maoists ambushed a vehicle carrying CRPF jawans on the Gangta-Lakshmipur road under Kharagapur police station area, killing two jawans and injuring 10 others, in April 2014. The slain jawans were Som Gawda and Ravindra Rai.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/five-maoists-sentenced-to-death-by-munger-court-in-bihar/story-7jiXhawMYDIcRG8l7KKDhJ.html (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Thursday, December 20, 2018

One more gets death sentence for Senari carnage (Bihar)

TNN | Nov 18, 2016, 11.58 PM IST

PATNA: A Jehanabad court on Friday awarded capital punishment to one more convict for his involvement in the massacre of 34 villagers at Senari in the district in 1999. The court of additional district and sessions judge Ranjeet Kumar Singh, which also imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on convict Dukhan Ram Kahar on Friday, had on November 15 awarded death sentence to ten and life imprisonment to three other convicts for the carnage.

The Senari massacre convicts being taken to jail on Tuesday. Picture by Sweta Chitranshi

The court had also slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on each of them. Jehanabad public prosecutor Surendra Prasad Singh said on Friday the prosecution prayed for death sentence to Dukhan as 23 witnesses recorded statements against him. At least 34 people belonging to an upper caste were dragged out of their homes and their throats slit by 1,000-odd members of Maoist Communist Centre, an outlawed left extremist outfit, at Senari under the Karpi police station area of Arwal district on March 18, 1999. Arwal was then part of Jehanabad district.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/One-more-gets-death-sentence-for-Senari-carnage/articleshow/55503185.cms (Accessed 20 December 2018)

Man given death sentence for killing minor (Bihar)

Munger | Saturday, May 7 2016 IST

A local court has sentenced to death and slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 to a man for kidnapping and killing a man ten-year-old boy in 2012.Additional district and sessions judge(V) Jyoti Swaroop Srivastava awarded death sentence to Manish Mandal alias Nepali Mandal after hearing the counsels for the state and the accused.

According to prosecution Mandal and two others had kidnapped the boy Aditya Raj from Nakki Nagar locality in 2012 and demanded a ransom of Rs 50,000 from his parents. When they failed to comply with their demand, the boy was strangulated to death.The accused had also sodomised the child and blinded him before strangulating him. Finding the case as "very serious",the judge awarded death sentence to the accused.Two others, involved in the crime, are still evading arrest.

Source: https://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20160507/2854390.html (Accessed 20 December 2018)

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