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Indian intellectuals, rights groups denounce death penalty
Rights activists and intellectuals are campaigning to halt capital punishment in India ahead of this week's scheduled execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenager.
Rights activists and intellectuals are campaigning to halt capital punishment in India ahead of this week's scheduled execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenager.
The death penalty is rare in this country. Friday's scheduled execution of Dhananjay Chatterjee, 39, will be West Bengal's first in 13 years. The state last hanged two people in 1991.
Chatterjee was arrested and charged with raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Kolkata in 1990. He'd been working as a security guard at the building where she lived, and was found guilty of raping and then smothering her. He pleaded innocent after his 1994 conviction and challenged the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam then turned down Chatterjee's clemency plea, clearing the way for Friday's hanging in a Kolkata prison.
Leading Bengali intellectuals are protesting the death sentence, and saying they hope the president will rethink his decision. "Some of us had appealed to the president against capital punishment and had appealed for his clemency for the death row convict," said filmmaker Mrinal Sen.
"The fact remains that the crime was very serious and I've nothing but contempt for such a crime. However, punishment by death is no answer," he said.
"The man should be given the severest punishment, other than death," said director and former actress Aparna Sen. "I'm against capital punishment because violence cannot be met with violence," she said on Wednesday. "My view is that capital punishment should be abolished because it's barbaric," said popular Bengali writer Sunil Ganguly. "The law should find out some other strong punishment for this kind of crime."
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, a Kolkata human rights group, had also appealed to the president to commute Chatterjee's punishment.
"Death punishment is nothing but violence in return for violence. Capital punishment has been abolished in many countries around the world," said the group's leader, lawyer Sujato Bhadra.
While no Indian government has spoken of dropping capital punishment, proposals were made last year to abandon hanging for a supposedly more humane execution method, such as lethal injection. No decision has been made on that issue.
