Death Penalty or capital punishment in India is one of the controversial issue in India law. According to the government statistics only 52 people have been hanged since india’s independence. Crime punishable to death are as follow : Aggravated Murder “ Rarest of the rare”, Terrorism against nation, Rape not resulting in death, Kidnapping, Drug Trafficking, Treason, Military offenses and other offenses.
Here are the list of few important case in which death penalty was executed.
Yakub Memon
Yakub Memon a highly qualified, the best chartered accountant in the Memon community and an Indian Terrorist. He was the main source of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, Yakub Memon, was executed in the Nagpur Central jail on 30 July 2015.
Yakub, financially assist his brother Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim in planning and execution of serial bomb blast in Bombay in 1993. He was convicted on charges of having funded the training of 15 youths who were sent to Pakistan to learn the handling of arms and ammunition.
1993 Bombay bomb blast was an avenge against the Muslim deaths during the Hindu-Muslim riots that had rocked Mumbai a few months earlier.
Mohammad Afzal Guru
Mohammad Afzal Guru received the death sentence in an involvement in 2001, Parliament attack. The Phone trackking records between him and the militants before the attack has prove his involvement in the attack, which he later confessed.
His mercy peal was rejected by Indian President Pranav Mukherjee and on 9 Feb 2013 he was secretly hanged till death at Tihar Jail and also buried inside the jail ground.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab a Pakistan-born militant was hanged and buried on 21 Nov 2012 at Yerwada jail in Pune. He was seen on the CCTV footage during the attack at Chharpati Shivaji Terminus along with another militant, Ismail Khan.
Dhananjoy Chatterjee
Dhananjoy Chatterjee also known as Dhana was a security guard who was deputed to Anand Appartment, Kolkotta. He was hanged on his date of birth 14 August 2004 in an involvement of rape and murder of 18-year-old named Hetal Parekh.
On March 2005, Hetal was found dead at her flat. The police began investigation, he neither come for work nor for collected the wages. He was finally arrested on 12 May 1992.
Auto Shankar
Auto Shankar @ Gauri Shankar was a serial killer from India during 1980s. Auto shakar and his gang along with his brother Auto mohan were found guilty of six murders, during 1988-89.
During late 1988, 9 teenage girls were disappeared from Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai. Investigator believed that they may have been sold in prostitution.
Late in dec 1988, schoolgirl claimed that an auto rickshaw driver had an attempt to abduct her. An undercover detective learned the rumors that auto driver shanker was behind these crimes. He was hanged on 27 April 1995.
Sukhdev Singh Sukha & Harjinder Singh Jinda
Sukhdev Singh Sukha and Harjinder Singh Jinda were the members of Khalistan Commando Force and were the assassins of Arun Vaidya, Lalit Maken and Arjan Dass. Sukha and Jinda were hanged on 9 October 1992 at Pune.
Arun Vaidya was Chief of Indian Army at the time of Operation Blue Star.
Lalit Maken was alleged to be involved in the killings of innocent Sikhs during 1984 Sikh genocide, political leader of INC, father of Ajay Maken, and son-in-law of Indian President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma.
Arjan Dass was Congress (I) leader and was involved in 1984 anti-sikh riots.
Kehar Singh and Satwant Singh
Kehar Singh, an assistant in Directorate General of Supply and Disposal, New Delhi was executed the conspiracy of Indira Gandhi Assassination. He was a maternal uncle of Beant Singh.
Satwant Singh and Beant Singh were the two Sikh bodyguards of Indira Gandhi, they assassinated her by putting 33 bullets in her chest. This was done against Operation Blue star.
Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders
Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Dhyanoba Sutar, Shantaram Kanhoji Jagtap and Munawar Harun Shah were commercial art students of the Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya, Tilak Road, Pune, India who committed 10 murders between January 1976 and March 1977, and were hanged to death on 27 November 1983.
Paanch movies was based on this serial murder case.
Kuljeet Singh @ Ranga and Jasbir Singh @ Billa
Ranga and Billa were sentenced to death for the murder of two children. On 26 August 1978, Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay Chopra, children of Naval officer were kidnapped by these two in their mustard color fiat.
On 28 August, the body of children were found, postmortem report said several stab wounds caused by kirpan. The investigation team recovered blood sample and finger prints from car and came to consequence that they are Ranga and Billa history sheeter.
On 8 September, they both were boarding Kalka mail were military personnel recognize them and handed over to railway police. They both were executed in Tihar Jail on 31 January1982.
Narayan Dattatraya Apte and Nathuram Vinayak Godse
Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi on 31 January 1948 was hanged on 15 November 1949 at Ambala Jail. He shoot Gandhi in his chest 3 times with a point blank range semi-automatic pistol. He killed Gandhi because he believed that Gandhi was in favour of muslims ans he was behind the India’s partition.
He plotted the assassination with Narayan Dattatraya Apte.
