Two sisters from Maharashtra will be the first women to be hanged in the country’s history. This after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the mercy petition of the two women, Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit, sentenced to death in 2001 for kidnapping 13 children and killing nine of them. The deaths were reported between 1990 and 1996 in Maharashtra's Pune, Kolhapur and Nashik districts.
The two sisters, who operated a racket with their mother Anjanabai Gavit, used to kidnap young boys and girls and force them to beg. When the children failed to be productive, they were brutally murdered or abandoned.
The victims were aged between one and five years and in most cases, the deaths were caused by smashing their heads against walls and electricity poles.
It was a family business as Kiran Shinde, the father of the two sisters was also part of this crime. However, he later turned approver and got acquitted, while the mother died during the trial. The two sisters who alone remained as accused were sentenced to death. President Pranab Mukherjee rejected their mercy petitions last month following which a note was sent to the State Home Department which informed the two convicts of the decision.
