Sending a strong signal to those who commit crimes against women and children, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected mercy petitions of six death row convicts. Incidentally, all the convicts were awarded death penalty for committing heinous crimes against children and women. The files were returned to Home Ministry for further action. These include Surendra Koli, guilty in the notorious Nithari (Noida, Uttar Pradesh) serial rapes and killings.
Besides Koli, mercy pleas of sisters Renukabai and Seema (Maharashtra), Rajendra Pralh-adrao Wasnik (Maharashtra), Jagdish (Madhya Pradesh) and Holiram Bordoloi (Assam) have also been rejected based on recommendations of the Home Ministry.
While 16 cases were filed against Koli, he has been awarded death sentence in four of them so far and others are still under trial. Sisters Renukabai and Seema were accused of kidnapping children and killing nine of them. The two sisters used to kidnap children and force them to steal and chain snatching. However, when the children grew old enough to understand things they were brutally killed.
Wasnik was given death sentence for sexually abusing and murdering the victim while Jagdish who was convicted for murdering his wife and five children. Bordoloi had killed three men, including a child, of a family in a gruesome manner in a bid to protect his supremacy in the village.