India Court Rejects Plea To Commute Death Penalty
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| Family members of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar break down after Friday's court verdict |
From Wikipedia: The apex court's judgement of dismissing, probably the last review petition against death sentence awarded to Professor Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, is a blow to the human rights activists world--wide. Professor Bhullar, a graduate in electrical engineering from Guru Nanak Engineering College, Ludhiana, served as professor in different technical colleges of Punjab. "It is well known that torture remains a pervasive and daily practice in every one of India's 25 states"--Amnesty International.
Peoples’ Union For Democratic Rights (PUDR): In a democracy that guarantees the right to life as a fundamental life, death penalty should find no rationale. In fact, the state should see the execution of someone in its custody abhorrent. Death penalty is an act of retribution and presents the state as an arbiter of retributive justice. The very notion of justice is lost in the act of taking away a life to avenge the loss of another life. Peoples’ Union For Democratic Rights (PUDR) sees death penalty as a form of state violence and an escalator of a culture of hate. It infuses a sense of vengeance in society and reinforces the cycle of violence. PUDR, while condemning the dismissal of the SC order, reiterates the dangers of having death penalty as sanctioned form of punishment and puts forward a demand for total abolition of the death penalty]
The petition was filed by Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar on the basis that there had been "an inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy plea.
He has been on death row since August 2001 for a 1993 attack in Delhi which killed nine. His plea, filed in 2002, was denied by the president in 2011.
The landmark ruling is likely to have a bearing on several other similar cases.
There are 17 prisoners on death row whose mercy pleas have been rejected.
Three convicts on death row for the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and four associates of the notorious bandit Veerappan have also approached the Supreme Court to commute their death sentences on similar grounds.
Until recently, executions were rarely carried out in India, but in the last few months, India has carried out two hangings.
Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November in a prison in the western city of Pune.
And in February, a Kashmiri man, Afzal Guru, was sentenced to death for the 2001 attack on India's parliament, was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail.
He has been on death row since August 2001 for a 1993 attack in Delhi which killed nine. His plea, filed in 2002, was denied by the president in 2011.
There are 17 prisoners on death row whose mercy pleas have been rejected.
Three convicts on death row for the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and four associates of the notorious bandit Veerappan have also approached the Supreme Court to commute their death sentences on similar grounds.
Until recently, executions were rarely carried out in India, but in the last few months, India has carried out two hangings.
Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November in a prison in the western city of Pune.
Source: BBC News
