1,591 EXECUTIONSOn April 23, the family of Sarabjit Singh, a death row convict lodged in Lahore jail, crossed over to Pakistan to seek clemency from the government there. Sarabjit is accused of spying and killing 14 people through bomb blasts in 1990 and has been in a Pakistani jail for the last 18 years. INDIAThe death sentence is handed out in India in consonance with the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab, that capital punishment could be awarded only in the "rarest of rare cases when the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed."Under Article 72 (1)(c) of the Indian Constitution, the President has the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence in all cases where the law provides for a death sentence. The Constitution provides similar powers to the Governor under Article 161. When the petition for clemency is pending before the President or the Governor, the execution of the death sentence stands suspended.The method of killing followed in India is ‘hanging till death’. A high profile case was the execution of a former security guard Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata in August 2004, convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old schoolgirl.Nathuram Godse, Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, was handed the death sentence. Satwant Singh, Indira Gandhi’s assassin, and Kehar Singh, a conspirator in the crime, were also hanged.On death row Mohammad Afzal, or Afzal Guru, convicted of masterminding the attack on the Indian Parliament, is a prominent and controversial figure on death row. In 2005, the Supreme Court had upheld the sentence, but his mercy petition is still pending before the President of India.MERCY PETITIONSThe mercy petitions of Perarivalan, Murugan and Shanthan, the three men sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and now lodged in jail, in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, are also pending. President K.R. Narayanan, following a plea by Sonia Gandhi, commuted the death sentence of Murugan’s wife Nalini to life term. There are also four associates of the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan in Belgaum jail, who are awaiting a decision on their mercy petitions, among several othersELSEWHEREApart from India, US, Japan, Pakistan and South Korea are some of the democracies that still have the death penalty. Eighty-nine countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, another 10 for all but exceptional crimes, and another 30 are abolitionist in practice, having executed nobody for a decade.UNITED STATESOn April 16, the Supreme Court of the United States of America concluded that the three-drug method of execution by lethal injection, followed in Kentucky, does not violate the US constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The validity of the death penalty was not an issue in the Kentucky case (Baze vs Rees), nor was the constitutionality of the lethal injection; rather it was a consideration of procedure, whether it was possible to kill less painfully, whether alternatives that were ‘feasible’ and ‘readily implemented’ were available. Executions have dropped to the lowest level in more than a decade, though they are now expected to rise, with the ruling ending the de facto moratorium on capital punishment in force since October 2007.EUROPEAN UNIONThe death penalty has been almost abolished in almost all European countries. Abolition is considered a central value of the European Union and a moratorium on the death penalty is a condition of membership to the Council of Europe.Six countries, China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the United States, accounted for more than nine in ten of last year’s known executions. Kuwait, which put just ten people to death last year, had the highest number of executions per head, followed by Iran. Iraq, where the death penalty was suspended after the American invasion in 2003, showed the biggest proportionate leap in executions, up from just three in 2005. Desertion from the Iraqi army has been made punishable by death.METHOD OF EXECUTIONl In the US, lethal injection is the method used or allowed in most of the 37 states that allow the death penalty. It calls for an overdose of barbiturate, sodium thropental, which causes unconsciousness, followed by pancuromium bromide or Pavulon, which causes paralysis and halts breathing, and potassium chloride, which halts the heart within seconds. The electric chair, the major method of execution throughout the twentieth century, is now sparingly used, its last application being in September 2007 in Tennessee. Historically, the methods of execution have ranged from burning religious heretics and supposed witches on the stake, to boiling to death, crucifixion, crushing under a weight, decapitation, disembowelment, drowning, garrote, gassing, guillotine(mainly during the French Revolution), stoning (followed by Sharia courts), impalement, poisoning and firing squad.
