Centre rejects mercy plea of the ‘killer of 13’

In September,the Home Ministry decided to take up pending Death Row cases and dispose them — one by one — on a monthly basis.

Sources said the Ministry has written to the President that the death sentence awarded to him should not be converted to life sentence.

During the night of August 17-18,1986,Singh and his accomplice,Lakha Singh — who died while the trial was on — killed 13 members of his family,including eight children below the age of 10. Also killed were Singh’s father,his two brothers and their wives.

On September 20,1992,the trial court sentenced the accused to death. In the appeal,there was a split in the two-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court. One judge held that the appeal be dismissed but the second argued for acquittal based on lack of concrete evidence.

The matter was referred to a third judge who upheld the conviction. Singh filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. And on September 28,2005,a bench headed by Justice K G Balakrishnan upheld the conviction and ruled that Singh deserved no leniency as he had not even a “grain of mercy” or kindness since he hadn’t even spared children.