By IANS,
New Delhi : Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli who were Friday sentenced to death for the murder of a teenaged girl join the list of over 400 death convicts in India.
According to a report by the Amnesty International, at least 140 people have been sentenced to death in India in 2006 and 2007. According to the latest available official figures, there were 273 people on death row as of Dec 31, 2005.
Dhananjoy Chatterjee was the last person to be executed in August 2004.
According to the Amnesty, at least 135 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.
“In 2007, only 24 countries carried out executions. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US were the main five perpetrators, accounting for 88 percent of all known executions,” the report said.
Mohammed Afzal Guru, convicted for the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, Ashfaq, convicted for the terrorist attack on the Red Fort here, and Santosh Singh, convicted for the murder of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo here, are among the few who have been convicted for capital punishment.
Many of them, including Afzal, have pleaded clemency before the president.
Pandher and Koli can challenge their sentences before higher courts.