06 April 2004 :

The People's Legal Forum (PLF) submitted a petition to the President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, urging him to commute the death sentence awarded by the Indian Supreme Court to Gnanaprakasham, Simon, Bilvendran, and Madaiah alias Mesekara Madaiah, to life imprisonment.
The apex court had sentenced them to death for their involvement in the Palar blast case in which 21 people were killed in 1993. Their execution was slated to be carried out on April 16 in Belgaum jail.
Following the court orders, the four convicts submitted a clemency petition to the President to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The forum president, M.L. Muneesh, and its secretary, P.P. Baburaj, said the goal of the criminal justice system in Indian society was the reformation of the criminal who should be provided with an opportunity to change given his propensity to reform.
"Every person deserves a second chance to repent and change," they said.
"Our law may be deficient with respect to the life imprisonment system but that is no excuse to sentence a man to death or to commit the very same act that we profess to abhor and instead strive to reform the criminals," the forum added.
Data compared between 1944 and 1951 when the Indian States of Travancore and Cochin had abolished the death penalty revealed no change in the crime rate. There were 962 murders in both States during the period of abolition and 967 murders after the reintroduction of the death penalty, the forum said.