President Pranab Mukherjee dismissed five mercy petitions today. However, he gave pardon to two convicts commuting their death sentence to life term. After 26/11 Mumbai attack convict Kasab and Parliament attacker Afzal Guru, five more will be hanged to death.
Pranab gave no relief to five people out of nine convicted in seven cases for heinous crimes.
The President has power to grant pardon, or commute sentences or reject the mercy petitions in certain cases under article 72 of the Constitution of India. However, five petitioners had to face big jolt today as their death execution will take place soon. Seven petitions were pending earlier. However, five petitions were dismissed by the President.
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The convicts on the death row include:
- Gurmeet Singh of Uttar Pradesh – convicted for killing 13 members of a family on August 17, 1986.
- Dharampal from Haryana – convicted for killing five members of the family of a girl he had raped in 1993.
- Daughter of a former Haryana MLA, Sonia, and her husband Sanjeev – They killed eight of her family members in Hisar in 2001.
- Suresh and Ramji from Uttar Pradesh – convicted for killing five members of their brother’s family.
Other convicts, who were awarded the death sentence are – Jafar Ali from UP, who killed his wife and five daughters in 2002, Sunder Singh from Uttarakhand, convicted for rape and murder in 1989 and Praveen Kumar from Karnataka, who murdered four members of a family in 1994.