Union Home Ministry rejects Kasab’s mercy plea

 The Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Tuesday rejected Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab's mercy petition.

The ministry has also forwarded it to President Pranab Mukherjee.

The mercy plea was rejected by Union Home Ministry, just a month after the lone surviving perpetrator of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks set in motion the last option available to save his life.

Earlier, the Maharashtra home ministry had also recommended to the President to reject Kasab's mercy plea.

Kasab’s mercy petition to the President

A four-line handwritten letter written in Urdu, seeking to be spared from his death sentence reads: 'Respected President of India, I have been given a death sentence. I request you to show mercy, and spare me this punishment.'

What happens next

Article 72 empowers President to pardon, grant reprieve or suspend, remit, commute sentence of person convicted of any offence.

Now, it is completely up to the President to reject his mercy plea or pardon him.

On death row, Kasab has ahead of him people like Mohammed Afzal Guru, the terrorist condemned to the gallows for his involvement in the December 2001 Parliament attack case, awaiting the President's decision on his mercy petition.

If executed, Kasab will be the 52nd person to be hanged in India since Independence. During the last decade (1990-2000), the Indian President rejected seven mercy petitions and commuted the sentences of two, while in the previous decade (1980-89) out of 45 mercy petitions, 41 were rejected and four commuted.