India-World Day-Death Penalty
Banners saying ’Abolish Death Penalty’ were hung across rivers and candle light vigils were held in cities as human rights activists observed the ’World Day Against the Death Penalty’ in the country by calling for a world without executions.

An inter-college seminar was held in Bangalore while activists organized candle light vigils in cities like Vijayawada, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Dhanbad, Nagpur and Hyderabad to mark the day, which is organized by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The day was organized in the country in the backdrop of the intense debate for and against the mercy petition filed by the family of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, who is awaiting execution in Tihar Jail.

"Urgent action is needed to end the era of capital punishment, even in cases of terrorism," Soumya Bhaumik, human rights education coordinator for Amnesty International India, told UNI.

Amnesty members organized seminars and debates and distributed leaflets in 35 cities across the country to seek an end to what they call ’an extreme violation of the right to life’.

Amnesty and 52 other organizations making the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty say several countries are failing to meet judicial standards required by the international community when using capital punishment.

"It is necessary for the Indian public and the Indian power structure to consider early abolition of the death penalty in the country," said Ravi Nair, executive director of the Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center.

The ’rarest of rare’ doctrine enunciated by the Supreme Court has been rendered ’meaningless’ as the number of offenses attracting the death penalty in India have increased alarmingly since then, said Nair, who dismissed the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent to violent crimes.

"There is no study, government or non-government, available in India or anywhere else in the world that the death penalty has been a deterrent to occurrences of any serious crime," Nair said.

The day was also marked by the launch of the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, which will campaign for respecting human rights by Asian countries. Activists say that to take a human life after appallingly low standards of justice makes the case for the abolition of death penalty all the more compelling and urgent.