Death Penalty News

Leaders in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, home to 72 million people, are considering punishing with the death penalty those who allegedly force people into religious conversion — a change that Christian leaders say could harm the state’s Christians, who already are persecuted under the law through false accusations. Mohan Yadav, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said March 8 that he plans to amend the state’s anti-conversion law to capitally punish those found to be fraudulently forcing people to convert, adding that “religious conversion will not be tolerated,” reported UCA News, a Catholic news outlet. Christians make up just 0.27% of the population in Madhya Pradesh, UCA News said.

According to data, there were 541 and 490 death row inmates at the end of 2022 and 2021, respectively, and 16 7 and 146 death sentences were awarded in 2022 and 2021. New Delhi: As many as death row inmates are currently lodged in prisons across the country, the the highest at the end of a calendar year in two decades, according to a report. The number has increased exponentially since 2015, witnessing a rise 45.71 per cent in such cases.

The apex court observed that the trial was conducted in a "hurried manner" The Supreme Court has set aside the conviction of a man who was awarded the death sentence for the alleged rape and murder of a three-month-old infant girl and has ordered a retrial in the case, noting that the accused was not provided the "proper opportunity" by the trial court to defend himself.  The apex court observed that the trial was conducted in a "hurried manner". 

A special fast track court in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh has awarded double-death sentence to a 32-year-old man for rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl. Accused was earlier arrested in connection with rape of her aunt. The sentence was given under Section 376A of the Indian Penal Code, under an amendment made in light of the gruesome Nirbhaya rape case. Besides capital punishment under Section 376A and Section 302 of IPC for murder by the trial court, he was sentenced to death under Sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012 also. Categorizing the case as “rarest of rare” (which under a legal precedent is critical precedent for the awarding of death penalty), the court also turned down his contention for leniency on grounds of young age, making it clear that it can’t be mitigating circumstance in cases of extreme depravity, said sources. Incident took place in Khirkari village on February 4, 2021. The 4-year-old girl belonged to a poor family of la...

Since 2016, there has been a steady increase in the proportion of death penalty cases involving sexual offences. In 2020, 50 (65%) out of 77 cases of the total death sentences imposed by trial courts involved sexual offences, making it the highest in five years, a recent report by Project 39A, a research and advocacy group in New Delhi reveals. Of the 65% cases involving sexual offences, 82% involved minors. As on December 31, 2020, a total of 404 prisoners are on death row with Uttar Pradesh having the most number of such prisoners at 59, followed by Maharashtra at 45 and Madhya Pradesh at 37. Andhra Pradesh, with two, has the lowest count of prisoners on death row. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Indian judiciary’s functioning was disrupted, with a major drop in the number of death sentences imposed by trial courts in 2020. In all 62% of the death sentences by trial courts were imposed in the first three months of the year before the lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020. The re...

The girl’s body was found in an agricultural field a day after she went missing on March 13, 2019. It later emerged that her brother had abducted and taken her to their uncle’s house A local court in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district has convicted a 12-year-old girl’s brother and uncle for raping, beheading her, and awarded them a double death penalty, calling the case rarest of the rare that warrants nothing less than capital punishment. Special public prosecutor Tahir Khan said special sessions judge Umashankar Agrawal awarded the double death penalty to the 22-year-old brother and 42-year-old uncle under Section 376-A (rape) and Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. RELATED | TN man gets double death penalty for rape, murder of 7-year-old girl According to the prosecution, the girl’s beheaded body was found in an agricultural field a day after she went missing on March 13, 2019.  It later emerged that the girl’s brother had abducted and taken her to their uncle’s house wh...

This was also true of 42% of cases in Madhya Pradesh and 51% of cases in Maharashtra during the same period, according to the study. Seventy-two per cent of all cases in which Delhi trial courts awarded the death penalty from 2000 to 2015 cited “collective conscience of the society” as an influencing factor, a study by Project 39A, a criminal reforms advocacy group, has found. This was also true of 42% of cases in Madhya Pradesh and 51% of cases in Maharashtra during the same period, according to the study. The team led by Dr Anup Surendranath, Executive Director of Project 39A and Assistant Professor of Law at NLU, Delhi, looked at 215 trial court judgments from Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to study the award of death sentences by trial courts. The three states were chosen for the study since they rank high on the list of states awarding capital punishment and a large number of decisions in capital cases were overturned at the appellate level — in the High ...

NEW DELHI: A criminal found guilty of sexual violence is more likely to hang now than four years earlier as trial courts in some states have an increasing propensity to award death for such crimes, suggests a new report.  In 2016, Madhya Pradesh gave death penalty in 33.3% of such cases; this rose to 81.8% in 2019.  Similarly, in Maharashtra, 45.5% of cases involving sexual violence were awarded capital punishment four years ago which increased to 71.4% in 2019.  The data on the two states was collated by the National Law University, Delhi’s Project 39A, that studies death penalty cases in India.  Executive director Project 39A and NLU assistant professor Anup Surendranath said, “In the post-Nirbhaya context, social and political conversations have been inclined towards harsher punishment as a means to address the growing concern over such cases.” Madhya Pradesh 2016 Total death sentence cases: 6 Of these, cases involving sexual viole...

The movement against the death penalty in present-day India faces a tremendous challenge in terms of extensive public clamour for swift executions, removal of appeals, and even support for summary executions.  With the imminent execution of the four convicts in the Delhi gang rape and murder case against the background of reactions to incidents in Hyderabad, Kathua and Unnao, harsher punishments are receiving tremendous public support, and politicians are only happy to oblige. The Supreme Court has issued administrative orders (1) to hear death sentence cases faster amidst misplaced concerns in the public that death row prisoners have too many loopholes in the law to exploit. Framing the death penalty as a political–legal issue in India is not easy. Located within the wider spectrum of social and state violence in India, the exceptional nature of the cruelty of the death penalty is difficult to establish.  The suffering inflicted by the death penalty is the cons...

Indore, Feb 24 (PTI) -- A 28-year old man was sentenced to death on Monday by a court in Indore in Madhya Pradesh for kidnapping, raping and killing a minor girl in December last year. Ankit Vijayvargiya was given the death penalty under section 376 (A) (death due to injuries suffered during rape) and Section 302 (murder) of IPC and provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act by Special Sessions Judge (POCSO Act) Varsha Sharma. Vijayvargiya abducted the four-year-old girl in Mhow late on December 1, 2019, while she was sleeping under a tree with her homeless parents, who earn their livelihood by begging on the streets, District Prosecution Officer Akram Sheikh said. He raped the girl and then strangled her, Sheikh said, adding that DNA samples and CCTV footage, which showed Vijayvargiya with the victim, played an important role in securing the conviction. A total of 29 witnesses, including parents of the victim, were examined during the cour...

The judgment was based on an appeal filed by a man sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 5-year-old in Madhya Pradesh. If a court finds it difficult to make a choice between death penalty and life imprisonment, it should opt for the lesser punishment, the Supreme Court said in a recent judgment. “Life imprisonment is the rule to which the death penalty is the exception. The death sentence must be imposed only when life imprisonment appears to be an altogether inappropriate punishment, having regard to the relevant facts and circumstances of the crime,” a Bench of Justices N.V. Ramana, Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Indira Banerjee observed in its March 12 verdict. The judgment was based on an appeal filed by a man sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a five-year-old in Madhya Pradesh. He had promised her family to drop her at school where his own daughter was studying, but the victim did not return home that day. The school authorities informed ...

A scheme that gives incentives based on convictions secured has seen 23 convicts getting capital punishment in the last year and a half from courts for raping and killing minors Mahendra Singh Gond of Satna district, the convict who raped a 4-year-old girl, was close to becoming the first man to be hanged under the new law providing for death penalty to child rapists. He was to be executed on March 2 in Jabalpur central jail. The Satna district and sessions court had issued a death warrant for the convict. Later, the Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the sentence. However, a three-judge bench of the Sup­reme Court headed by Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, stayed the death sentence on February 15. Gond, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, is among the 23 convicts awarded death sentence by various courts in the state  for raping and murdering minors in the last one and half years. The London-based World Book of Records has already recognised and awarded the state’s prose...