India

[Neil]

India’s a country where you can essentially call up your local crime syndicate and ask them to ransack or murder somebody and a lot of the times the police force goes hand in hand with those said syndicates and they turn a blind a eye to the crime. You can have the police essentially set you free if you pay the right price. Watch Indian movies in subtitles you’ll know what I’m talking about.

[Helen]

4 sentenced to death for 2013 Gandhi Maidan blasts in Patna; jail for 5 others

Five men convicted for the Gandhi Maidan blasts in 2013 are already serving life terms for the Bodh Gaya Mahabodhi blasts just over three months before the October 27, 2013, attack on Modi’s election rally

By Avinash Kumar
Hindustan Times

PATNA: Four of the nine men convicted for the 2013 serial blasts at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan have been sentenced to death by a Patna court on Monday. Special NIA judge Gurwinder Singh Malhotra sentenced the five other convicts to prison terms ranging from life to seven years.

Six people were killed and 90 injured in the explosions.

Seven blasts went off on October 27, 2013, right before Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, was to reach the venue to address an election meeting.

The additional district and sessions judge (XV) of the special NIA court,Gurwinder Singh Malhotra awarded capital punishment to Imtiyaz Ansari, Haider Ali alias Abdullah alias “Black Beauty”, Noman Ansari and Mohammed Mujibullah Ansari.

Umar Siddiqui and Azharuddin Qureshi were sentenced to life imprisonment, Ahmed Hussain and Feroz Aslam were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment while Mohammed Iftekhar Alam was awarded a seven-year prison term.

Five of the convicts - Haider Ali, alias Black Beauty, Imtiaz Ansari, Umer Siddique, Azharuddin Qureshi and Mujibullah Ansari - are already serving life terms for the Bodh Gaya Mahabodhi blasts just over three months before the October 27, 2013, attack on Modi’s election rally.

The nine were convicted on October 27 by the special NIA judge for planting and detonating the explosions.

Special public prosecutor Lalan Kumar Sinha said the nine were convicted for criminal conspiracy, murder, attempt to murder, waging war against the government of India, conspiracy to wage war against the government, destroying evidence, explosives and railway act and the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Two suspects including Imtiyaz Ansari (Gandhi Maidan) and Mohammad Tariq Ajam (Patna Junction) were also injured in the incident and revealed the name of other suspects.

Ajam died during the treatment in the PMCH. Following their revelations, the Bihar police and NIA solved the Bodh Gaya blasts case as well.

Senior police officer Manu Mahraaj, who was Patna’s senior superintendent of police when the blasts took place, said Imtiaz’s arrest after his injury in an accidental blast at Patna railway junction on the day of Modi’s rally blew the lid off the conspiracy. The then SSP and then Bihar police chief Abhyanand told HT that they were happy with the court’s judgement.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/citie...769529261.html

[Mike]

I happen to read an Indian newspaper every morning for my news roundup and have been noticing an increase in stories about "Deaths in Custody" which are usually labeled suicides but by just reading the families reactions it's obvious the cops are killing them.

For instance.

Police said that Altaf, a labourer from Nagla Syed in Kasganj, was picked up for questioning on a complaint by a Hindu family, who accused him of kidnapping their 16-year-old daughter. They said they rushed Altaf to the Community Health Centre on discovering him in the toilet, but he died during treatment.

An autopsy has confirmed death by hanging, police said, adding they also had a written statement by Altaf’s family saying he was suffering from depression.

The girl, a student of Class 10, remains missing, and several police teams are trying to find her. Altaf was buried on Wednesday.

While Altaf’s family said he could not have committed suicide, adding that the pipe police said he had hanged himself from was at a height of just two-three feet, they added they did not want to pursue the matter. Altaf’s father Chand Mian also works as a labourer.

On Tuesday night, Chand Mian had accused police of killing Altaf. But in a video later, he said he was angry at the time and didn’t mean what he said. “I spoke to doctors, police, and came to know Altaf died by suicide. Police took him to hospital as well. I am satisfied with the police action.”

Altaf’s uncle Shakir Ali said they didn’t have the resources to pursue the case. “We are poor people, and just want to survive. We are not in a position to make demands. He was alive and well when we met him… we do not know what happened later,” said Ali.

https://indianexpress.com/article/ci...-case-7616282/

[Mike]

Indian court commutes death sentences of two serial killers over delayed execution

Two Indian serial killers on death row for murdering five children had their sentences commuted after a court ruled that the delay in their hanging had violated their fundamental rights.

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday commuted the death sentences of sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit to life imprisonment due to the “inordinate delay” in carrying out their executions.

The sisters were convicted by a sessions court in 2001 of kidnapping 14 children, using them for stealing and killing five of them between 1990 and 1996.

The women later appealed to the Bombay High Court, which upheld the sentences. Their mercy petitions before the state governor and later the president in 2014 were rejected.

But Justices Nitin Jamdar and SV Kotwal commuted their death sentences, holding the state and federal government responsible for causing delays and infringing on their fundamental rights.

The bench ruled that because of the “casual approach” of the state officers, the mercy petitions were not decided on for “seven years, 10 months and 15 days”.

“Though the procedure for deciding the mercy petitions mandates speed and expediency, the state machinery showed indifference and laxity at each stage of processing the files,” the order said.

The judges, however, said that the crimes committed by the convicts were heinous and they will remain at Yerwada Jail in Pune for the rest of their lives.

The horrific details of the crime surfaced in 1996 when the two sisters were arrested, along with their mother and Shinde's husband, Kiran, after police discovered clothes belonging to small children at their home during an investigation into an unrelated matter.

Police found that the sisters, who lived with their mother Anajanabai in Pune, moved across the state kidnapping children, using them as a cover to beg and steal.

During the trial, Mr Shinde admitted guilt and Anajanabai died of an illness in 1998.

Lawyer Manik Mulik, who represented the three women in the case, said that the order was “justice” for the convicts as they had been living in trauma of being “hanged to death” all these years.

“I feel glad that their death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. For the last seven years, they were living in the fear and trauma of dying every day because there was a delay,” he told The National.

Death sentences in India are usually limited to the cases such as terrorism, waging war against the state and other serious crimes.

In the past, several Indian courts have commuted death sentences to life imprisonment, citing delays in execution as a breach of fundamental rights.

India has as many as 404 prisoners currently on death row, the Delhi-based research and advocacy group Project 39A said.

(Source: The National News)

[Helen]

Uttar Pradesh court awards death penalty to three in triple murder case

The Free Press Journal

A local court here has sentenced three people to death in a 10-year-old triple murder case in Jalapur village.

Government prosecutor Pushpendra Singh Chauhan on Saturday said on October 1, 2012, Manish Yadav along with his relatives Virendra Yadav and Kamlesh had shot dead his father Sukhram, step mother Sushma and step brother Abhishekh over a property dispute.

Avadh Singh, the brother of deceased Sukhram had lodged an FIR at Karhal Police Station against Manish Yadav, Virendra Yadav and Kamlesh.

Following a probe, the three were arrested and a chargesheet was submitted in court, police said.

Chauhan said on Friday, the court of Additional Sessions Judge/Fast Track Court Tarannum Khan, after hearing the prosecution and defence counsels, held the trio guilty and sentenced them to death.

The judge also slapped a fine of Rs 1.20 lakh on each of the convicts and directed that Rs 2.70 lakh of this amount be paid to deceased Sukhram's daughter, Rachna.

https://www.freepressjournal.in/legal/uttar-pradesh-court-awards-death-penalty-to-three-in-triple-murder-case

[Mike]

Number of death row prisoners 488, highest in 17 years, says report

THE NUMBER of prisoners on death row at the end of 2021 stood at 488, the highest in 17 years, according to the Death Penalty in India Report.

“2021 saw the highest number of prisoners on death row at the end of the year since 2016 at 488, an increase of nearly 21% from 2020. When compared with data from the Prison Statistics of India reports released by the National Crime Records Bureau, this is the highest the death row population has been since 2004, when it was 563,” it stated.

The report on annual statistics on death penalty by Project 39A is expected to be released Monday. Project 39A is a criminal law reforms advocacy group at the National Law University, Delhi.

The report suggested that limited functioning of courts due to the pandemic has impacted the priority given to death penalty related cases.

“The limited functioning of appellate courts in both 2020 and 2021 meant fewer appeals of prisoners sentenced to death being decided, and a far greater number of prisoners remaining on death row at the end of the year,” it said.

According to the report, while trial courts imposed a total of 144 death sentences in 2021, high courts decided only 39 matters in the same period. In 2020, high courts decided 31 matters related to death penalty compared to 76 in 2019. The Supreme Court, despite listing death penalty cases on priority in September last year, decided only 6 cases in 2021 compared to 11 in 2020 and 28 in 2019.

The report stated that of the 39 cases involving death penalty decided by high courts, only four resulted in confirmation of the death sentences. While 18 were commuted to life imprisonment, 15 in acquittal of all charges, and two cases were remitted back to the trial court. The report stated that the majority of cases in which trial courts imposed the death sentence involved murder, bucking an increasing trend of awarding death sentence for sexual crimes.

Source Indian Express

[Mike]

Ahmedabad blasts: 38 convicts deserve death sentence, says court

TelegraphIndia

The 38 convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case deserve the death sentence as allowing them to remain in society is akin to releasing a "man-eater leopard" in public that consumes innocents, the special court has said in its order.

In the judgement, a copy of which was made available on Saturday, the court also said that in its opinion, the death sentence will be reasonable as the case falls in the "rarest of the rare" category.

The special court had on Friday sentenced to death 38 members of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) for the Ahmedabad bombings which killed 56 people and injured over 200 on July 26, 2008. The court also gave life terms to 11 other IM convicts in the case.

It was for the first time in the country that the maximum number of death sentences were handed down by a court in one go.

"The convicts created unrest in a peaceful society and carried out anti-national activities while living here. They have no respect for the constitutionally-elected government at the Centre and in Gujarat, and a few believe only in Allah and not in the government or the judiciary," special judge A R Patel said in the order.

There is no need for the government to keep the convicts in jail, especially those who said they believed only in their God and none others, the court said, adding there is no jail in the country that can keep them lodged forever.

"If such people are allowed to remain in the society, it will be like releasing a man-eater leopard in public. Such convicts are like a man-eater leopard that eats innocents in society, including children, youth, elderly, women, men, newborns, and people of different caste and communities," the judge said in the order.

The prosecution had sought death sentence for all the 49 convicts in the blasts case, including those who hatched the conspiracy and those who planted the bombs.

"For the people carrying out such terrorist activities, death sentence is the only option, for the sake of peace and safety of the country and its people," the court said about the 38 convicts.

Handing down life sentences to 11 other convicts till the end of their natural life, the court said their crime was less severe compared to the main conspirators.

"They took part in the conspiracy along with the main conspirators, and took part in terror training camps in the jungles in Halol-Pavagadh in Gujarat and Vaghmon in Kerala on their own accord, but their role in the crime does not involve death sentence," the court observed.

"But, if they get anything less than imprisonment till their last breath, then these convicts will again commit similar crimes and will help others, is also certain," it said.

Responding to arguments of some convicts that they were framed because they were Muslims, the court said it cannot accept this, because in India, there are crores of Muslims who live as law-abiding citizens.

"Why did the investigating officers arrest only these people? Others should have been arrested had they also been involved in the case. The investigating officers are responsible people," the court said.

The police had claimed that members of the IM, a radicalised faction of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were behind the Ahmedabad blasts which were planned to avenge the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat that claimed the lives of over 1,000 people, most of them from the Muslim community.

While 38 accused were convicted by the court under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 11 others were held guilty for criminal conspiracy and also under various sections of the UAPA, the prosecution had said.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 2.85 lakh on 48 convicts and Rs 2.88 lakh on another convict.

It also awarded compensation of Rs one lakh to the kin of those who died in the blasts, Rs 50,000 to those who were seriously injured and Rs 25,000 to those who received minor injuries.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india...rt/cid/1852677