10 May 2006 :

an occult practitioner has been sentenced to death by a Madhya Pradesh court for sacrificing a two-and-a-half-year-old in his search for hidden treasure. 'Mahesh Kurmi killed Shrikanth, son of Chatar Singh, who had gone missing from Aabchand village in Sagar district on Oct 20, 2004, in the hope of finding hidden wealth', additional public prosecutor Ramavtar Tiwari said. A day later, the police found the mutilated body of the infant buried under a pile of stones at Dasoi Baba, a shrine revered by tribals in the area. The headless body bore several injury marks and the ears had been chopped off. The head was found nearby, with ashes smeared on it indicating that the child had been sacrificed for occult rituals. The police arrested Mahesh, who on sustained interrogation admitted to have killed the child to 'appease the gods' in the hope of getting hidden treasure. This is not an isolated case of luring and sacrificing a child for occult rituals in Madhya Pradesh in the hope of finding great treasure. According to police officials, at least a dozen such incidents occur in the state every month but many of them go unreported. 'Hunting for hidden treasure in this backward state is not a new thing. Cases of killing for treasure too are not uncommon. But what is a cause of concern is the frequency with which such cases are coming to light. Another factor baffling us is that the trend is shifting from the illiterate rural areas to the literate urban', said a senior police official. The death penalty is provided for by the Penal Code and by Art. 21 of the Constitution which states: "No person may be deprived of their life or personal freedom except in cases established by law."
Death-qualifiable offences are conspiracy against the Indian Government; desertion or attempted desertion; murder or attempted murder; inducement to suicide of a minor or a mentally-retarded person. The death penalty is not mandatory for these crimes. Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) prescribes the death penalty alone with no alternative in cases where a convict serving a life sentence commits murder. The court under this section cannot exercise its discretion and award a lesser sentence. A landmark judgement by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab, held that the death sentence as a punishment should be given only in the "rarest of rare" cases. The Indian legislative system provides for different levels of appeal, and death sentences are frequently commuted to life imprisonment upon appeal. The President also has the power to issue pardons. India’s first reported execution since 1995 took place on August 14, 2004 in Calcutta. Dhananjoy Chatterjee, 39, was hanged at dawn at the Alipore Central Jail where he had spent his last 13 years in solitary confinement. Chatterjee had been convicted in 1991 for the 1990 rape and murder of 16-year-old Hetal Parekh, who lived in the building where he worked as a security guard.
India keeps no official statistics on the number of death sentences and executions, nor on the number of people on death row.