Ludhiana/Pune (November 21, 2012): A day after Indian State opposed UN resolution against abolition of death penalty, India has carried the execution of Ajmal Kasab a death row convict in 2008 Mumbai attacks. This execution has breached the de facto moratorium on death penalty observed in India after the execution of Dhananjay Chaterjee in 2004.
Kasab was hanged in Pune’s Yerwada jail and is reportedly buried in the jail on November 21, 2012.
Ajmal Kasab, executed on November 21, 2012.
The hanging came four years after the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks. Kasab was awarded the death penalty by the sessions court in May 2010 which was confirmed by the Bombay High Court in February 2011 and then by the Supreme Court. His review petition was reportedly rejected by the President of India last week.
According to “The Hindu”: Kasab’s defence lawyers Amin Solkar, Farhana Shah and Abbas Kazmi have welcomed the execution but raised the questions over the secrecy surrounding the hanging.
According to Indian Express, Special Prosecutor Nikam said “It is victory for the country. By hanging Kasab, we have paid homage to all those policemen and innocent persons who lost their lives”.
It is also learnt that Narindra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujrat State, has tweeted: “What about Afzal Guru, who attacked Parliament, our temple of democracy, in 2001? That offence pre-dates Kasab’s heinous act by many years”.
It is notable that Narindra Modi was believed to have his hands behind the mass murder of Muslim minority population in Gujrat in 2002.
According to media reports families of victims of have expressed satisfaction over the hanging of Kasab.
According to a news report by DNAIndia: “Ajmal Kasab had been informed about his hanging on November 12. He had said this should be communicated to his mother in Pakistan, Union Home Ministry sources said”.
Meanwhile, All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) President Karnail Singh Peermohammad has appreciated the hanging of Ajmal Kasab while questioning the Indian state’s failure to try or punish the perpetrators of Sikh Genocide 1984.
Amnesty International India has termed the execution of Ajmal Kasab as a significant blow to India’s progress away from using the death penalty.
A representative of the international human rights body told NewsX, a TV news channel: “Amnesty International India believes that the death penalty should not be used in any circumstance and in this case we recognize the atrocity of the crime which Ajmal Kasab was convicted and sentenced and we sympathise with the families and the victims but we also believe that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of the human rights. We think that you can not use an execution to condemn a killing and that’s what happened in this case. Just two days back the UN general assembly adopted a resolution where a 110 countries voted for a moratorium on executions. 2/3 of all countries world wide do not use the death penalty. There hasn’t been an execution in India in 2004 and we believe that this execution is a significant blow to India’s progress away from using the death penalty”.