WB minister supports death penalty

With the President's decision still awaited, a senior West Bengal minister wants the death sentence for Dhananjoy Chatterjee upheld.

With the West Bengal government awaiting the decision of President A P J Abdul Kalam over the fate of the rape-and-murder convict Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a senior minister of the government on Tuesday said that the death sentence of the condemned man should be upheld.

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"I definitely want the punishment of death for him, considering the heinous crime he has committed," Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty and senior CPI(M) leader told newsmen in Kolkata.

According to secretariat sources, the state government was yet to hear from the Centre about the President's decision on the matter.

Chakraborty also demanded the capital punishment for those responsible for the death of the man who was thrown out of a speeding bus on Saturday when he resisted their attempts at molesting his wife.

"People who have the cheek to commit such crimes do not have the right to live," he said.

To a question, the minister, however, said that he was against the death penalty for activists of the naxalite outfit People's War because they were fighting an "ideological battle."