Times of India: New Delhi:
Saturday, April 05, 2014.
Mercy
petition of a death row convict from Bihar, Krishna Mochi, seems to have gone
missing. The President's secretariat and home ministry have denied having
received it while the state government records show that it was sent to the
Centre.
News reports
about Krishna's mercy petition pending since 2003 appeared in early 2014. Two
days after the reports, Venkatesh Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
filed an RTI with Rashtrapati Bhavan and home ministry seeking details of his
mercy petition.
In its reply,
Rashtrapati Bhavan secretariat said no mercy petition had been received from
Krishna. Venkatesh was also told to approach the home ministry since it is the
custodian of records.
On Friday,
the home ministry replied to Venkatesh that no mercy petition had been
submitted by Krishna. However, home ministry also gave an ambiguous twist by
stating in the reply that "some petition has just been received, which is
under scrutiny". This does not specify if the petition is about Krishna.
Details were denied on the ground of privacy of the petitioner.
But Bihar
government records show that Krishna's mercy petition is pending. This was part
of state government's report to home ministry giving details of death sentences
executed and pending in Bihar.
Krishna was
convicted under TADA for his involvement in the Bara massacre of 1992 in which
35 upper caste men were killed by members of Maoist Communist Centre. Krishna
and three others were convicted for the killing. Others are Nanhe Lal Mochi,
Bir Kuer Paswan and Dharmendra Singh.
.JPG)
.JPG)
