President Pranab Mukherjee has cleared all the pending files of mercy petitions before him by rejecting seven persons’ appeal and pardoning two others by commuting their death sentence to life imprisonment. Mukherjee took the decision last week.
Both the President’s Secretariat and the Home Ministry did not issue any official communication regarding the details of the cases. However, unconfirmed reports suggested that the President has commuted the death sentence of a husband and wife convicted for multiple murders involving family members.
According to officials, the President’s action was ratification of the recommendation of Home Ministry in February. All the cases involving the nine persons were related to multiple murders of family members. “As a matter of policy, we don’t talk about the details of any case,” said senior officials.
Following were the mercy petitions sent to the President, with recommendations from the Home Ministry, in February:
1. Dharampal, convicted for killing five members of a family in Haryana in 1993. He was also convicted for raping a girl of the family.
2. Gurmeet Singh convicted for murdering 13 members of a family inUttar Pradesh on August 17, 1986.
3. Sonia, a former Haryana MlA’s daughter along with her husband Sanjeev, both convicted of killing eight of her family members in Hisar in 2001.
4. Sunder Singh of Uttarakhand, convicted for rape and murder on June 30, 1989.
5. Jafar Ali, who killed wife and five daughters in Uttar Pradesh in 2002.
6. Praveen Kumar convicted for murdering four members of a family, on February 23, 1994.
7. Suresh and Ramji, from Uttar Pradesh, convicted of murdering five members of their younger brother’s family.
After Mukherjee became President, he had expedited the mercy files, which was pending for several years. He had rejected Mumbai 26/11 terror attack convict Ajmal Kasab’s petition in November and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru in February. Both were hanged in top secrecy.
The President has also rejected the mercy petitions of forest brigand Veerappan’s four associates, earlier sentenced to death for killing 21 policemen in a landmine blast at Palar in Karnataka in 1993, and mercy petitions of Saibanna Ningappa Natikar, convicted for the murder of his first wife and also his daughter.