New Delhi: Expediting the pending mercy petitions, the Home Ministry has sent to the President for final decision seven cases of multiple murders, including one in which a convict who was out on bail on rape charge killed five members of victim`s family.
The recommendations in seven cases, involving nine people, were sent after President Pranab Mukherjee took his decision on mercy petitions of eight condemned prisoners including Mumbai terror attack convict Ajmal Kasab and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru -- both whom have been hanged.
The convicts whose mercy petitions were sent to the President with recommendations by the Home Ministry during the last fortnight include Dharampal from Haryana who had murdered five members of the family of a girl he had raped in 1993.
The other cases are of Sonia, daughter of a former Haryana MLA, and her husband Sanjeev, who drugged and killed eight of her family in Hisar in 2001 including her parents.
Sunder Singh from Uttarakhand is convicted for rape and murder on June 30, 1989, Jafar Ali from uttar Pradesh who was convicted for killing wife and five daughter in 2002 and Praveen Kumar Karnataka, convicted for killing four members of a family on February 23, 1994.
Gurmeet Singh from UP was convicted for killing 13 members of a family on August 17, 1986 and Suresh and Ramji, also from UP, was convicted for killing five members of brother`s family.
President Mukherjee has so far disposed of mercy petitions
of eight death row convicts in five cases.
After the President rejected their mercy petitions, Kasab and Guru were hanged on November 21 and February 9 respectively.
Mukherjee has also rejected the mercy petitions of Saibanna Ningappa Natikar (Karnataka: convicted for killing wife and daughter) and mercy petitions of slain brigand Veerappan`s associates Gnanaprakash, Simon, `Meesai` Madaian and Pilavendran, who were sentenced to death for killing 22 police personnel in 1993.
However, the mercy petition of Atbir (Delhi), who was convicted for murder of his step-mother, step-sister and step-brother over property, was commuted to life imprisonment by the President.
PTI
