April 15
INDIA:
SC upholds death penalty for soldier
To teach a lesson for challenging his supremacy in a village in Assam,
Holiram Bordoloi, a soldier who killed 3 - a man and his 6-year-old son by
throwing them into fire and the man's elder brother by cutting him into
pieces - in broad daylight nine years ago in Assam.
Terming this as a cold-blooded murder, the Supreme Court upheld the
capital sentence imposed on Holiram saying it did not find "any mitigating
circumstance to refrain from imposing the death penalty on him."
The evidence in the Holiram case proves beyond reasonable doubt his actual
involvement in the incident, said the apex court, adding it did not find
"any mitigating circumstance to refrain from imposing the death penalty on
him".
The death sentence is ordered only in the rarest of rare cases. Though
every murder is heinous, the extreme penalty is imposed only in certain
circumstances such as when a murder is committed in an extremely brutal,
grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner so as to arouse
intense and extreme indignation of the community.
2, when the murder is committed for a motive which evinces total depravity
and meanness: for example, murder by an assassin hired for money or
reward, or a cold-blooded murder for gains of a person vis-a-vis whom the
murderer is in a dominating position or in a position of trust, or murder
is committed in the course of betrayal of the motherland.
The death penalty can also be awarded when the victim of a murder is an
innocent child, or a helpless woman or old or infirm person or a person
vis-a-vis whom the murderer is in a dominating position or a public figure
generally loved and respected by the community.
(source: Times of India)
