JOIN USAt a time voices against death penalty are getting louder, a government report has shown that the number of death-row convicts in Indian jails and awarding of capital punishment have decreased in the past couple of years.
At the end of 2014, Indian jails housed 318 prisoners, including eight women, on death row. In 2013, the figure was 382, including 10 women. In 2012, it was 414, which had 13 women.
Of the total 1.31 lakh convicts, the death row convicts accounted for just 0.1 per cent with Uttar Pradesh (82) reporting the highest number of such convicts. Karnataka finds a place in top five. Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for 25.8 per cent of the convicts given capital punishment followed by Maharashtra (36), Madhya Pradesh (33), Bihar (28) and Karnataka (24).
The awarding of capital punishment is also decreasing, if one goes by the National Crime Records Bureau’s “Prison Statistics India 2014” report. While 125 people were awarded death sentence in 2013, it has come down to 95 last year. In 2012, it was 97.
During 2014, Bihar had awarded the highest number of capital punishments at 17 followed by Uttar Pradesh (16), Madhya Pradesh (12), Maharashtra (9), Chhattisgarh (8) and Gujarat, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh (5 each). Karnataka had one in this category.
Activists, however, are not seeing much in the decrease, as they believe that there is not much change in mindset. The latest Law Commission report had recommended the abolition of death penalty but the Union Home Ministry is learnt to be not in favour of acceding to the demand, as it feels that time is not ripe for such a move.
The report shows that the numbers of commuting death sentence to life is also increasing. While it was 61 in 2012, it rose to 112 last year. In 2013, it was 115.
Out of 112 convicts whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2014, 18.8 per cent were reported from Bihar (21) followed by Delhi (19), Karnataka (15), Maharashtra (10) and Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (9 each). No convict was executed during the year 2014 while one – Yakub Memon – was done this year.