President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the mercy petition of the infamous forest brigand Veerappan’s four associates. The decision comes days after the rejection of mercy plea and hanging of Afzal Guru. Top government sources said that the government has put on fast track its move to clear all pending mercy petitions which have been dragging on for years now. Clearing the backlog, the Union home ministry has sent eight pending mercy petitions, including that of Veerappan’s associates — reiterating death penalty — to Mr Mukherjee for a final decision. These cases had been returned by Mr Mukherjee to the home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for his “re-consideration’’ in November last year. The oldest case dates back to 1986 of one Gurmeet Singh of Uttar Pradesh on death row for killing 13 members of his family. His case is followed by that of Dharampal from Haryana awarded death sentence for the murder of five members of a family while on bail in a rape case in 1993. The mercy pleas of Veerappan’s associates — Gnanprakasham, Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran — had been pending with the government since 2004. Union home ministry sources said the move to fast-track decisions in death row cases is a fall out of instances of death row convicts, whose mercy pleas have been rejected by the President, going to court challenging the President’s decision on various grounds, particularly citing inordinate delay by the government. Significantly, two cases of death row convicts — Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan — the assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Devendra Pal Bhullar, held guilty of killing nine bystanders in a 1993 car bombing, have put the government in a tight spot after the convicts moved the court challenging the President’s decision. Bhullar’s family has sought clemency citing undue delay by the government on his mercy plea which has allegedly turned him into a mental wreck. “Death row convicts challenging the President’s decision on various grounds should not be allowed to become the norm. In both cases, the government has its hands tied as the matter is in court,” an MHA official said. On the other hand, Balwant Singh Rajoana, the killer of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, escaped hanging just three days before he was to be executed in 2012. After a political uproar in Punjab just three days before his death sentence was to be executed, President Pratibha Patil accepted a mercy petition on his behalf and his execution was stayed. Most recently, death row convict Saibanna Nigappa Natikar has moved the Karnataka high court in January 2013 seeking a stay on his execution once again citing “delay’’ by the government in deciding on his mercy plea.
