India's law minister, Ram Jethmalani strongly favoured...

India's law minister, Ram Jethmalani strongly favoured abolition of capital punishment saying the useless exercise has failed to eradicate crime or act as deterrent. "From my experience I know the death penalty is no remedy to crimes, it is useless and serves no purpose," Jethmalani told a symposium on the "death penalty". Jethmalani said India had already signed the 1966 UN convention and was thus internationally and morally committed to progressively work for the abolition of the death penalty. Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani had previously favoured the introduction of the death penalty for the offence of rape. (Sources: PTI monitored by BBC, The Hindu, 26/02/2000) (dicpol) March 14, 2000: the government was considering a proposal to impose death as one of the penalties for rape offences, Junior Minister for Home Affairs Vidyasagar Rao informed the Lower House of Indian Parliament.