A day before execution, Veerappan’s 4 associates move SC against death penalty

mangaloretoday.com/NDTV

New Delhi,Feb 16, 2013: The four associates of infamous forest brigand Veerappan have moved the Supreme Court against death penalty. The four were sentenced to death for a landmine blast that killed 21 people in Palar, Karnataka, in 1993. Recently, President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected their mercy pleas.

 

 

Their execution was reportedly scheduled for Sunday morning. Sources say that one of the judges of the Supreme Court is expected to hear the matter at his residence in an hour or so, as the apex court is not sitting today.

The four convicts - Veerappan’s elder brother Gnanaprakash, Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran - have been on death row since 2004, when the Supreme Court sentenced them to death for killing 22 policemen and forest personnel from Tamil Nadu in a landmine blast at Palar, Karnataka. The four are lodged in a jail in Belgaum in Karnataka.

 

A Mysore court had awarded life term to the four associates of Veerappan for their involvement in the landmine blast. But the Karnataka government appealed against the life term and filed a petition in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court awarded them the death sentence in January 2004. Their mercy pleas have been pending since 2004.

The President’s refusal to commute their sentence to life came within days of his rejecting the mercy petition of Afzal Guru for the attack on Parliament in 2001. Guru was hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 9.

Supreme Court refuses to hear Veerappan associates’ petition, says no proof of their date of hanging


Fearing that their execution could be as early as Sunday, four associates of notorious sandalwood smuggler Veerappan on Saturday appealed in the Supreme Court for a stay. The top court declined to hear the petition, saying there was no proof that the date of their hanging had been fixed.

The court said the petition, filed by advocate Shamik Narain on behalf of the four, can be heard at a later date.