On Wednesday, President Pranab Mukherjee had given his say on the pending mercy petitions after studying them carefully. It is indicated that of the nine people involved in 7 unforgivable crimes, death sentence was addressed for five cases while two other cases were given imprisonment for life.

Exercising his power vested by Article 72 of the Constitution, President has upheld five cases of execution which had petitioned for a mercy plea while in two other cases, the punishment was reduced from executions to a life sentence. However, he has redefined the meaning of life sentence from being imprisonment for 14 or 20 years to the literal meaning of imprisonment for life.

With all the 7 cases being worked out, the President no longer bears the onus of the hitherto impending mercy pleas. Details of individual cases are yet to be ascertained.

As known, the cases that sought pardon from the President of India include one Gurmeet Singh from UP who was apprehended for killing 13 members of a family on August 17, 1986. Suresh And Ramji from UP were also involved in killing of the family of their own brother. Dharmapal, who was accused of rape in 1993 killed members of the family while on bail in the case.

Sonia and Sanjeev a couple from Haryana were indicted in killing their family of eight members including the girl's own parents, one of them a former Haryana MLA. Sunder Singh was guilty of rape and murder on June 30, 1989. Jafar Ali from UP had been arrested for killing his own wife and five daughters. Praveen Kumar of Karnataka was convicted for killing four members of a family on February 23, 1994.

Earlier Pranab Mukherjee has rejected mercy pleas of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru within less than three months. He has approved the death sentence of 8 convicts involved in five cases already.

(AW- Anil)