Feb. 19
INDIA:
Minister's speech disrupted by group demanding justice for Nirbhaya
Nirbhaya's brutal assault continues to agitate civil society with a group of
boys and girls disrupting the Saras Mela organized by the rural development
ministry at Delhi Haat on Monday and demanding death penalty for the minor and
others involved in the incident.
The disruption took place even as minister of state for rural development
Pradeep Jain was giving his speech. In the midst of the minister's speech, a
group of boys and girls started shouting slogans demanding justice for
Nirbhaya.
Sensing trouble, police reached the venue but the minister asked them to stay
away and spoke to the group. Jain told them that the government had taken the
issue seriously. He said Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had gone
to Nirbhaya's home and promised action against the culprits.
The government had also issued an ordinance relating to women's safety
following recommendations made by a committee headed by the former Chief
Justice of India, he added.
***************************
Laila Khan murder case: Tak's bail application to be heard next week
A sessions court will hear the bail application of an accused in the Laila Khan
murder case, next week. The accused Pervez Tak filed the application days after
the draft charges were submitted against him. Tak has been in jail since his
arrest last year for the alleged murder of his step daughter, starlet Laila
Khan and five of her family members in February 2011.
In the 984-page chargesheet filed before the Esplanade Court on October 3, the
Crime Branch booked both Tak and an absconding accomplice Shakir Hussain, under
sections 302 (murder), 363 (punishment for kidnapping), 364 (kidnapping or
abducting in order to murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause
death or grievous hurt), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence),
and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. The maximum punishment
under section 302 is the death penalty.
(source for both: The Times of India)
************************************
Serial killer Chandrakant Jha ate dinner in the same room where his victims lay
dead
He would help them get a job, provide them meals and pamper them like his
children; then he would kill them savagely at the slightest provocation and
scatter their mutilated limbs in different parts of Delhi. This is how serial
killer Chandrakant Jha functioned.
Jha, said to be involved in many such killings, showed no signs of remorse as a
Delhi court ordered the gallows for him last week in 2 cases. Taking into
account the brutality with which the crimes were committed, additional sessions
judge Kamini Lau refused to show any leniency saying he cannot be reformed.
His 1st murder was recorded in 1998 and he remained behind bars for more than 3
years, but was released in 2002 for lack of evidence. Following this, he went
on to murder and mutilate at least 6 more. Though he was arrested in connection
with these 6 killings, he managed to escape the noose in 4 of them, again due
to lack of evidence.
Jha consistently evaded the police by dismembering his victims and scattering
the body parts around the city, making it hard for the cops to identify the
victims and the perpetrator of the crimes. He would do all this for the sheer
thrill of challenging the law enforcement agencies, and this was his way of
taking revenge on the Delhi Police for their "atrocities" against him,
according to Jha. In 2 cases, a note was also recovered with the mutilated body
parts found outside Tihar Jail.
Judge Lau also took serious note of Jha's allegation against the police that he
committed the murders to avenge the police harassment he faced. According to
police records, a total of 14 FIRs, including seven murder cases, were lodged
against Jha.
Jha used to help young men, usually migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, get
petty jobs. He would keep them at his house in JJ Colony, Hyderpur and is said
to have treated them like his children. But, at times, petty things such as
drinking, smoking, lying and being non-vegetarian would be enough to prompt a
murder. He would begin the "death ritual" mostly around 8 pm by tying his
victim's hands on the pretext of punishing him. He would then strangle him
using a nunchaku.
After killing his victims, he preferred to have dinner in the same room where
his victims lay lifeless. In his own words, he is a specialist in chopping
bodies. Following his arrest after his final murder in 2007, he confessed that
he had perfected the art of cutting bodies leading to minimum blood oozing out
after mutilation.
Though Jha has been sent to the gallows for his gruesome crimes, the court
pointed out the necessity for police reforms.
(source: India Today)
*************************
Do we really need the death penalty?
The Supreme Court staying the execution of Veerappan's aides may give us
breathing space as a society to ruminate over the death penalty. Inevitable as
it seemed in the case of Ajmal Kasab, who attacked the Indian nation, the
principles seemed somewhat less clear in the case of Afzal Guru, who was a
conspirator rather than a killer. There is, of course, only a thin red line
separating those who intend to cause harm and others who actually make the
hits.
Having carried out 2 executions already, the state seemed extra keen to get
through the pending cases, of which at least 3 are very prominent - the killers
or conspirators in the assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh and the
architects of mine blasts that killed 22 police personnel. The manner in which
Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati attacked the mere admission of a desperate plea
by Veerappan's aides for a fair hearing by the apex court would suggest that an
instrument of the state is being pro-active on its behalf towards eliminating
more convicts using the mediaeval practice of hanging by the neck until dead.
Condemned to die or not, every individual has a right to exhaust all legal
options and it is only fair that justice be delivered after due consideration
of all pleas and without any kind of reference to race or religion of the
convicted person. It is another matter altogether whether the death penalty
should remain on the statute books and also whether the country should continue
to use the rope to execute convicts for the worst crimes. If people should die
for their crimes, let us be somewhat more merciful in killing them with a
lethal injection, as is the practice in most states in the US.
Again, it is arguable whether the death penalty should have legal sanction in
this day and age. It is known that 140 of 193 member states of the UN have
abolished the death penalty. As we progress as a race, we should not be
continuously consumed by the desire to carry out a rough and ready justice
whereby people are hanged. But, then again, how do we deal with the worst
excesses of devious minds that stop at nothing towards gaining their agenda? Is
it possible to forgive those who kill our leaders or attack symbols of the
state, like the Parliament building? What about those who blow up the personnel
of our security forces even if the forest bandit's henchmen claim that they had
no option but to collaborate as the only alternative was instant death at the
hands of Veerappan? It is time to think about the issue of life and death.
(source: Editorial, The Aisan Age)
***********************
UK's House of Commons to debate the Human Rights Violations & The Death Penalty
issue in India
According to an Press release by the campaigners and organizers of the Kesri
Lehar: "[t]he Kesri Lehar petition has secured a debate in the House of Commons
on 28th February 2013, primarily sponsored and supported by Rt. Hon. John
McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington. The debate has now been listed to take
place in the Main Chamber of the House of Commons, on Thursday, 28th Feb., 2013
at 11.30am."
"The petition originated after a public gathering in Parliament Square on 12th
April, 2012, to appeal for the release of Balwant Singh Rajoana. The petition
which has accrued over 118,000 signatures, was formally presented to Prime
Minster David Cameron on 10th December 2012 by a large delegation of Kesri
Lehar campaigners, which included representatives of Amnesty International,
Federation and the Asian Chriastian Fellowship. A greater momentum has since
gathered for a Parliamentary debate to discuss the on going Human Rights
atrocities that are being systematically being perpetrated by the Union of
States Government of India within various states and upon certain minority
groups??? the press release reads further.
As per organizers of Kesri Lehar the call for the parliamentary debate was
supported by a cross-party group of 68 Members of Parliament, through their
support of the Kesri Lehar EDM 296.
The full text of the motion to be debated states: "That this House welcomes the
national petition launched by the Kesri Lehar campaign urging the UK Government
to press the Indian government to sign and ratify the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court and the UN Convention against Torture and other
Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which encompasses the
death penalty, with the result that India would abolish the death penalty and
lift this threat from Balwant Singh Rajoana and others." Liberal Democrat MP
Stephen Williams, one of the supporters, commenting on the petition said: "I
pay tribute to the work done by both Kesri Lehar and to Amnesty International
(which I am a member of) as they have continued to expose the Indian
Government's failure to address human rights abuses effectively. I abhor the
death penalty and I do not think it has a place in any modern criminal justice
system. I strongly believe that it is not an effective deterrent and simply
demonstrates contempt for human life."
"The secrecy in which recent executions were carried out in India has evoked
both shock and surprise in the civilized world. Human rights bodies and
activist have renewed calls for India to end capital punishment" a Kesri Lehar
organizer told Sikh Siyasat News.
India is among a minority of countries which continue to use the death penalty.
In total, 140 countries, more than 2/3 of the world's countries, are
abolitionist in law or in practice. In 2011, only 21 states in the world
executed, meaning that 90 % of the world was execution-free.
"The campaigners and supporters of Kesri Lehar (Wave for Justice) feel that the
scheduled debate on Human Rights violations in the Union of States Government
of India will be "a timely debate as India seeks to send many others currently
on death row, including Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar who have
amassed immense grassroots support" reads a statement by Kesri Lehar.
(source: Sikhsiyasat.com)
IRAN:
Larijani brothers counter attack against Ahmadinejad, execution orders
confirmed for $3 billion bank fraud case.
In a move by Iranian regime's Judiciary that is considered a counter attack
against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. the office of prosecutor general declared that the
Supreme Court has confirmed execution order for 4 defendants in $3 billion bank
fraud case that emerged in September 2011 and was defined as "the greatest
financial fraud in the history of the country."
One of those condemned to death is Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, the entrepreneur
who bought up businesses and industrial concerns with fraudulent lines of
credit.
Ahmadinejad and his cabinet had been accused of perpetuating this great fraud
through their lack of vigilance. The Iranian regime's judiciary is headed by
Sadeq Larijani. In a Parliament session headed by speaker Ali Larijani, Sadeq's
brother, on February 3 Mohmoud Ahmadinejad accused the his family of
corruption.
Addressing parliament to defend one of his ministers against impeachment,
Ahmadinejad went on the attack, playing lawmakers a recorded conversation with
another brother of Larijani.
Mostafa PourMohammadi, the auditor General said early last year that "there is
no doubt that this group was supported by the administration, including the
president, his chief of staff, ministers and banks."
Along with Amir Khosravi, the head of Amir Mansour Arya Company; Behdad
Behzadi, the company's financial adviser; Iraj Shojai, the financial sources
and investment development officer of Amir Mansour Arya Company, and Saeed
Kiyani Rezazadeh, the head of Ahvaz Bank of Saderat branch were sentenced to
death.
All 4 were charged with "corruption on earth through disruption of the economic
system of the country."
*************************
Families of executed women protest in Ahwaz
The Iranian regime's henchmen hanged 2 women prisoners on Sunday in Karoon
Prison in southwestern city of Ahwaz.
The members of families of prisoner staged a protest outside the prison. The
State Security Forces attacked the families and arrested a number of them.
Also on Sunday, the Iranian regime???s henchmen hanged three prisoners in
public in southern city of Shiraz.
(source for both: ncr-iran.org)
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