28 mercy petitions pending till Nov 21

New Delhi, Nov 27 (UNI) As many as 28 mercy petitions were pending till November 21 this year, Minister of State for Home V Radhika Selvi informed the Lok Sabha today.

These range from those of R Govindasamy (Tamil Nadu) and Shyam Manohar, Sheo Ram, Prakash, Suresh, Ravinder and Harish (UP), pending since 1998, to that of Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal, received in 2006, and Sonia and Sanjeev (Haryana), received this year, Mrs Selvi said in a written reply.

Only in the case of Kheraj Ram, a condemned prisoner from Rajasthan, the death sentence awarded by the court was commuted into life imprisonment by the President of India in 2006, she said.

X X X PRISIONERS: As many as 345,648 prisoners were languishing in jails in different parts of the country as on December 31, 2005, Minister of State for Home Manikrao H Gavit said, citing National Crime Records Bureau statistics.

UNI