The execution of Ajmal Kasab, which follows the hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004, is believed to be the second-quickest trial-to-execution case in the country.
While it took three years to decide on the fate of Ramchandra alias Raoji, a resident of Banswara in Rajasthan who was awarded the death sentence for the murder of his family, Kasab was hanged just a few days short of the fourth anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
As per official data provided by RTI activist Subhash Agrawal, Raoji was executed on May 4, 1996, three years after killing five persons, including his pregnant wife and three children.
In 1996, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence awarded to him by a sessions court in 1994. In March 1996, President Shankar Dayal Sharma rejected his mercy plea within six days of the petition being put before him. He was hanged on May 4, 1996.
Kasab was hanged almost four years after he, along with nine other terrorists, attacked various locations in Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
Significantly, President Pranab Mukherjee took an out-of-turn decision in rejecting Kasab’s plea as at least 14 other petitions, including that of the Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru, were pending with the President as of October this year.
Chatterjee was convicted for the murder of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh on March 5, 1990 at her apartment in Bhowanipur, West Bengal.
Earlier, serial killer Auto Shankar was executed in Salem, Tamil Nadu, in 1995.
Sources in the government said the President had returned seven mercy petitions, including that of Afzal Guru, for the consideration of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Normal procedure
However, it has been termed a normal procedure for President to refer all pending mercy petitions for the consideration of a new Home Minister.
Notably, the Home Ministry, as well as the Delhi government, had recommended that Afzal Guru’s mercy petition, filed by his wife, be rejected by the President.
