Antony has been waiting for a fateful decision - one which will decide whether he should live or not. The clemency petition of Antony, who was awarded capital punishment in the sensational Aluva murder case, has been pending before the President for the past one-and-a-half years.
Antony was sentenced to death for murdering six members of a family in January, 2001. The High Court confirmed the death penalty in 2006 and later the Supreme Court too upheld the lower court’s verdict.
Antony was admitted to the Central Prison, Poojappura, in 2005. “He is a reformed person now and has repentance for what he had done,” prison sources said. Antony is the only prisoner from the state whose commutation petition was rejected by all the courts. Also he was not in the list of 32 persons who were pardoned by former President Pratibha Patil.
Apart from Antony, there are 12 other prisoners in Kerala who have been awarded capital punishment. “All of them are waiting for the verdict from upper courts,” said Alexander Jacob, Prisons ADGP.
Nine of them, including Unni, convicted in the sensational Kanichukulangara murder case, have been housed in the Central Prison, Poojappura, and four, including Govindachami of Soumya murder case, are lodged in the Central Prison, Kannur.
Rajendran, 48, convicted on June 21 for raping and killing a woman and her daughter in 2007 at Peerumedu, is the newcomer to the list who has been lodged in Central Prison, Viyyur.
While Antony is the senior among such prisoners, most of them in the group have completed two to four years in prison. The long wait for justice, while turning a curse for the convicted prisoners, actually helped them extend the days in their life.
It was in 1993 that capital punishment was last executed in the state. Muthukutty Chandran alias Ripper
Chandran who killed 15 persons was the last one to be hanged to death. The execution took place in Central Prison, Kannur.
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