Even as Ajmal Kasab, convicted of the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, was executed on Wednesday, nine convicts sentenced for death housed in the Central Prison at Hindalga here are awaiting disposal of their mercy petitions pending with the President.
The Hindalga prison is the only one in the State that has the facility for hanging convicts on death row. The last execution was carried out in the prison in 1983, when murder convict Hanumanth was hanged.
The prison does not have a hangman and plans to train one of its personnel when required. It has facilities for executing three persons at a time.
Official sources said the prison here houses 60 death sentence convicts and nine of them have filed mercy petitions with the President. The appeals of the others are pending in the Supreme Court and the High Court of Karnataka.
The convicts on death row have been housed in a separate cell inside the prison and do not have access to other inmates. Among the convicts, psychopath rapist and killer Umesh Reddy alias B A Umesh has been regularly petitioning the President against the prison personnel, sources said. Reddy, son of Ajjappa Reddy from Hiriyur in Chitradurga district, has been housed in the prison since October 29, 2006. He had filed the mercy petition from outside.
The mercy petition of Praveen Kumar Sapaliga from Peereyadak village in Puttur taluk of Dakshina Kannada district was submitted to the President on October 26, 2003.
Four aides of slain forest brigand Veerappan - Simon (son of Anthonyappa), Bilavendran (son of Marrisgouda), Gyanprakash (son of Joseph from Kollegal in Chamarajanagar district) and Madaiah alias Meesekar from Mettur in Tamil Nadu - had submitted mercy pleas to the President on February 12, 2004.
Saibanna Ningappa Natikar from Jewargi in Gulbarga had submitted the mercy petition to the President on April 30, 2005. Shivu (son of Munishetty) and Jadeswamy (son of Rangashetty) from Kollegal in Chamarajanagar district had submitted the mercy petitions on February 28, 2007.
The death sentence of rape and murder convict Bandu Baburao Tidke from Bagalkot, who died in the prison on October 18, 2007, was commuted to life sentence by then the president Pratibha Patil in June 2012.
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