Search the Internet          Tips

Recent Specials

Trail of Death Profile: Hu Jintao Fighting AIDS A village sans lawyers Godhra and the      Kashmir Connection Where East Meets West A DNA rabies vaccine? Divide and Convert Out of Africa, Into India Miniatures from Mewa When Bhutto did      Musharraf in A terrorist haven? Garden for the blind The conference that      left everyone cold Emergency Excerpts The Inventor Distorting History 2 Distorting History 1 Kashmr: the road ahead MORE SPECIALS...

The Rediff Special/George Iype and Onkar Singh

Sayed Abdul Rehman Geelani, Mohammad Afsal, and Shaukat Hussain Guru have been condemned to death for their role in the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament House, New Delhi, when Parliament was in session.

These three men have now joined others on the death row: Nalini, Murugan, Chinna Santhan, and Perarivalan - condemned in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and currently in the Vellore Central Prison, Tamil Nadu.

So how many Indians are on the death row these days? And how many Indians have been executed since India's Independence? Amazingly, the central home ministry has no official record of the total number of death penalties given out in the country so far or the total number of persons on the death row.

While death penalties involving political assassinations -Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi - have been widely reported on, capital punishment for the series of other criminal offences rarely makes news.

Jurists, social activists and lawyers say the awarding of death penalty has risen dramatically over the years, especially after 1980s, since the government has been extending capital punishment to a number of penal laws.

This is, according to jurist Fali S Nariman, despite a ruling from the apex Supreme Court that death sentence should be applied only "in the rarest of the rare cases".

Nariman, who is against capital punishment, says all over the world there is a growing tendency to discourage the death penalty. "Whether we like it or not, we would have to follow the global demand for the abolition of death penalties," he says.

He points out that under the United Nations' charters, death sentence is looked down upon with abhorrence. "Even the cases of genocide tried at the International Court of Justice does not invite death penalty these days. So it is time India abolished capital punishment," he asserts.

According to Amnesty International, some 80 countries have so far abolished the death penalty in the last two decades, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Mauritius, Nepal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. But India is part of some 90 countries that retain capital punishment such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

Chennai-based advocate and human rights activist Sukumar Muralidharan, who has studied the cases of death penalty, says capital punishment India is rare compared to countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. "But the Indian government has never supplied the official statistics of the death sentences to human rights groups or the United Nations," he adds.

Muralidharan, who heads the Human Rights Action Group, estimates that on an average, a dozen executions are carried out every year across India for various criminal offences.

In 1989, the UN Economic and Social Council demanded that its member countries publish each category of offence for which the death penalty is authorized, the number of persons sentenced to death, and the number of executions actually carried out every year. But India, a member of the Council, never supplied the details.

Former Supreme Court Justice V R Krishna Iyer says it is high time India abolished the death penalty system because of the inherent flaws in the country's legal system.

"Our penal code provides for capital punishment for wide range of offences," Iyer says. "But sadly, the death penalty has never reduced these crimes in the country."

Under the Indian Penal Code, the death sentence can be imposed for a range of offences that include murder, attempted murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, and waging war against the government. Capital punishment can also be applied on defence personnel for various offences under the Army Act, 1950, the Air Force Act, 1950, and the Navy Act, 1956.

But over the years, the government has been expanding the list of offences. Special courts established under the Terrorist Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1984 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002, can impose death sentence for terrorist acts. Incidentally, Geelani, Afsal, and Guru are the first persons to be condemned by a POTA court.

In 1987, the government passed the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act that awards the death penalty to individuals convicted of abetting a successful sati. In May 1988, causing death by use of illegal arms or ammunition was made a capital offence. In December 1988, second convictions for drug trafficking were made punishable by death under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act.

These days, a debate is on among the Members of Parliament whether to make rape an offence for capital punishment.

Former law minister Shanti Bhushan says death penalty should be awarded as per the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court. "The whole issue of capital punishment depends upon the totality of the case. Even if some misguided persons in their zeal commit a heinous crime, we should not come down so heavily to award death penalty just because it is there under the law," he points out.

Bhushan also insists that death penalty should be given to the actual perpetrators of a crime. "Merely because someone colluded with the actual perpetrators does not mean that he/she gets death penalty. That is the flaw in our legal system. The role of conspirators needs to be assessed. Hundreds were killed in Gujarat after Godhra. Does it mean that there would be death penalty for all them?" asks the former law minister.

Over the years, jurists like Nariman and former Supreme Court Chief Justice P N Bhagwati have pointed that the biggest problem with awarding the death penalty is human fallibility. They quote the example of Kehar Singh, who was executed for taking part in the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984.

These days, legal experts believe Singh's death sentence was based on weak, circumstantial evidence.

Similarly, activists point out that even the method of execution in India - death by hanging - is a brutal practice that violates global rules of freedom from cruel and torturous forms of treatment. For instance, points out Muralidharan, it took long 15 minutes for Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, to die from hanging. "Even Gandhiji would have opposed the death penalty to his killer," insists Muralidharan.

But when human rights activists challenged the practice of death by hanging, the Government of India in 1983 gave its official explanation: death by hanging was the best method because the vascular, nervous, and respiratory systems are extinguished in a single moment.

Image: Rahil Shaikh

The Rediff Specials