21 February 2007 :

the first case of a woman being hanged in independent India could happen soon. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court order sentencing a husband and wife to death for murder. The husband and wife were convicted of killing former Haryana MLA Relu Ram Punia, and seven memebrs oh his family including four children, the youngest only one-and-a-half months old. This makes the woman, identified as Sonia, the third woman on India's death row. Last August, the court upheld the death punishment for two women from Maharashtra. They were thieves and were charged with killing 13 children. The last time a woman was executed by the government of the country was in the 1920s.