It is wrong of me to wonder, but I can’t help but think the outcome might have been different if he were a Hindu, not a Catholic.
(I’m assuming he’s Catholic based on his name, and knowing another Indian with the same family name who, like many from his state, is Catholic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhananjoy_Chatterjee
Dhananjoy Chatterjee (August 14, 1965 in Kuludihi, West Bengal, India - August 14, 2004 at Alipore Central Jail in Calcutta, India) was a security guard who was executed by hanging for the murder (following a rape) of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh on March 5, 1990 at her apartment residence in Bhowanipur.
Chatterjee, whose mercy plea was rejected on August 4, was kept at Alipore for nearly 14 years. The execution was scheduled on June 25, but it was stayed after his family petitioned the Supreme Court of India, and filed a mercy plea with the then President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. The family refused to either attend the execution or claim his body; it was later cremated.
The date of Chatterjee’s execution was fixed at a high-level meeting at the office of Jail Minister Biswanath Choudhury. This was the first hanging at Alipore since 1993, when murder convicts, Kartik Sil and Sukumar Burman, were hanged. It was the first execution in India since 1995.
> I can’t help but think the outcome might have been different if he were a Hindu, not a Catholic.
You need to modify your thinking process.
What difference does it make what religion the pedophile was?
The Civil Justice System of India is based on secular principles of jurisprudence and is not some Hindu theological bastion.