Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has pushed for abolishing death penalty in India in a study released on May 2; the study was taken up by Amnesty International-India and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (Tamil Nadu & Puducherry).
It has voiced for immediate cessation of death penalty as its findings says that there are grave concerns about arbitrariness and discrimination in the process that give death penalty as punishment.
The study, Lethal Lottery: The Death Penalty in India - A Study of Supreme judgments in death penalty cases, 1950-2006 highlights the essential unfairness of the death penalty in India by analysing evidence found in Supreme Court judgments of abuse of law and procedure and of arbitrariness and inconsistency in the investigation, trial, sentencing and appeal stages in capital cases.
The human rights group says that its report has found many inconsistencies in the investigation, trial, sentencing and appeals stages. It disagrees with the figure disclosed by the government of the total execution carried in different places across the country. Amnesty also disputed the official figure of 273 people waiting to be executed at the end of December 2005 as miscalculated one and that at least 140 people are believed to be sentenced with death penalty in 2007 alone.
But the Indian officials have censured Amnesty claims that India’s official figure on death penalty is not transparent, as the death sentence are pronounced in courts which are then recorded in prison records. Also the death punishment is carried for “rarest of the rare case” after 1983 Supreme Courts’ ruling, and that there has been only one execution so far in last ten years in which Dhanonjoy Chakraborty was hanged in 2004 on the eve of Independence Day.
The report says that often innocent people have been sentenced to death on the basis of false and fabricated evidence, often used in manipulated investigations and prosecutions, with investigating and prosecuting agencies acting in collusion.
Amnesty urged the government to ensure that the death penalty was not imposed on anyone suffering from mental disability.
In its report it says, “As the world moves steadily away from the use of the death penalty, the time has come for the Indian authorities to abolish this outmoded form of punishment.”
“Amnesty International fears that the leaders of India may lack the political courage and human rights leadership necessary to abolish the death penalty,” it added.
The study and its summary has sought to bring neutrality on the death penalty and to convince the public and decision makers that society will be better off by outlawing the capital punishment.
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