10 October 2004 :

Death penalty is no deterrent to crime and it has to go, Saji Thomas, secretary of interim National Executive Committee of Amnesty International India, said. "After Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged on August 14 this year, seven rape and murder cases were reported in West Bengal alone during the next fortnight," he said to show that those committing a crime in a fit of rage or under the heat of passion fail to mind the consequences. On the other hand, crime rate had dipped in Canada after 1976, when capital punishment was abolished. He was speaking at a two-day seminar on the death penalty, organised in connection with the `World Day Against Death Penalty', observed on October 10.