Showing no mercy for acts of brutality, especially against minors, the NDA Government sent out a tough message on Wednesday by rejecting mercy petitions of six people, including Nithari killer Surinder Koli, who is convicted in four cases of serial rape and murder of children.
After the change of regime at the Centre, the President had forwarded five mercy petitions to the NDA Government for opinion. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh signed the five files recommending death sentence for Renukabai and Seema (Maharashtra), Surendra Koli (Nithari, Uttar Pradesh), Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik (Maharashtra), Jagdish (Madhya Pradesh) and Holiram Bordoloi (Assam), official sources said.
The files were forwarded to the President Secretariat for a final view based on the Ministry’s decision. The President can either accept the recommendation or seek reconsideration on the mercy petition but only once.
In the backdrop of the UPA Government ‘s massive criticism by the Supreme Court for inordinate delay in disposing of mercy pleas of several convicts, the NDA Government acted wisely to decide on such mercy petitions at the earliest. In January this year, the SC commuted death sentence in 15 cases on the ground of “inordinate delay” to decide the mercy petitions. The benefit of the decision went to Rajiv Gandhi killers, aides of forest brigand Veerappan and Khalistan terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, accused of masterminding a bomb blast in Delhi, among others.
The 42-year-old Koli, accused of raping, killing and chopping off the bodies of innocent children in UP’s Nithari village was sentenced to death in four out of 16 cases where he faced trial. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence in February 2011 following which he moved a mercy petition to President. The incident that took place between 2005 and 2006 shocked an entire nation as his death sentence too came to be confirmed by the apex court that heard and decided it in a matter of a day.
Similar was the case against two sisters Seema and Renukabai who along with their mother and another accomplice kidnapped poor children near slums of Maharashtra and employed them for theft and chain snatching. They were accused of kidnapping 13 children from 1990-96. later, as victims grew up, they were smothered to death by the accused. Over nine children were found with their heads smashed, strangulated, thrashed with iron rods and thrown on railway tracks.
The case against Wasnik related to gruesome killing of a girl in Maharashtra who was sexually abused before being hacked to death. His death penalty was upheld by SC in October 2012. The Home Ministry also recommended rejection of mercy petition of Jagadish, convicted of murdering his wife and five children (four daughters and a son, aged between one and 16 years). The trial court sentenced him to death in April 2006. Jagadish claimed to be of unsound mind. But the apex court rejected the plea in 2009. The final case related to Holiram Bordoloi of Assam. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005 which found him guilty of setting three of a family on fire in full public glare in November 1996. , Bordoloi, along with 17 others, later dragged another relative of the deceased and sliced him into pieces in front of the villagers.