Posted on 06/25/2004 8:55:29 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
CALCUTTA, India (AP) - Rights activists and intellectuals are campaigning to halt capital punishment in India ahead of this week's scheduled execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenager.
The death penalty is rare in this country. Friday's scheduled execution of Dhananjay Chatterjee, 39, will be West Bengal state's first in 13 years. Two people were hanged in the eastern state in 1991. Chatterjee was arrested and charged with raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in the state's capital, Calcutta, in 1990.
He'd been working as a security guard at the building where she lived, and was found guilty of raping and then smothering her.
He pleaded innocent after his 1994 conviction and challenged the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal.
President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam then turned down Chatterjee's clemency plea, clearing the way for Friday's hanging in a Calcutta prison.
Leading Bengali intellectuals are protesting the death sentence, and saying they hope the president will rethink his decision.
"Some of us had appealed to the president against capital punishment and had appealed for his clemency for the death row convict," said filmmaker Mrinal Sen.
"The fact remains that the crime was very serious and I've nothing but contempt for such a crime. However, punishment by death is no answer," he said.
"The man should be given the severest punishment, other than death," said director and former actress Aparna Sen.
"I'm against capital punishment because violence cannot be met with violence," she said Wednesday.
"My view is that capital punishment should be abolished because it's barbaric," said popular Bengali writer Sunil Ganguly. "The law should find out some other strong punishment for this kind of crime."
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, a Calcutta human rights group, had also appealed to the president to commute Chatterjee's punishment.
"Death punishment is nothing but violence in return for violence. Capital punishment has been abolished in many countries around the world," said the group's leader, lawyer Sujato Bhadra.
No Indian government has spoken of dropping capital punishment, but proposals were made last year to abandon hanging for a supposedly more humane execution method, such as lethal injection. No decision has been made on that issue.
The Canadian Press, 2004
© Copyright Standard Radio Inc., 2004.
INDIAN authorities yesterday stayed the hanging of a Kolkata apartment guard convicted over a teenage girl`s rape and murder in what would have been India`s first execution in 15 years.
The stay came as Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam reviewed an appeal for clemency by a human rights group. The convict`s elderly parents had threatened to commit suicide if the execution scheduled for today was carried out.
"The hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee has been postponed," West Bengal state`s law minister Nisith Adhikari said yesterday. "It is not going to happen tomorrow."
The state`s top prosecutor Balai Roy said the execution would be stayed until the president decided on the petition for clemency.
Chatterjee, a former apartment guard and elevator operator, was convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old tenant as she returned from school in 1990 in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.
The sentence would have been carried out by 83-year-old Nata Mallick, who had said he was tying nooses at home for practice and would bring to the gallows his 20-year-old grandson who would succeed him as Kolkata`s hangman.
Mallick and his grandson inspected the prison gallows together yesterday morning, but the elder hangman said he was not bothered that he could not execute Chatterjee at the set time.
"God has saved him. I am happy that he has got a reprieve," Mallick said.
The convict`s father Bangshidhar Chatterjee, 76, and Purnima Chatterjee, 70, had threatened to commit suicide if their son was hanged and asked that the execution wait until they die.
The parents were among 30 relatives who demonstrated on Monday in front of West Bengal Governor Viren J Shah`s house calling for a repeal of the death sentence.
Chatterjee is being kept in a cell isolated from other inmates, inspector general of prisons Joydev Chakravorty said.
"He is in a reflective and depressed mood. Jail officials told me that he was writing a diary," Chakravorty said.
Capital punishment is increasingly out of favour in India, whose Supreme Court authorises executions only in the "rarest of rare cases". Executions are regularly delayed indefinitely or commuted by India`s president.
The federal government keeps no records on the death penalty, but the last known executions were in January 1989 with the hangings of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, the bodyguards of prime minister Indira Gandhi who were convicted of assassinating her.
Oops, my earlier comment should have been the article. Can I correct it now?
The execution should have happened by now, if I am not wrong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.