Capital Punishment

Capital punishment also known as death penality, is essentially the execution of an individual as punishment for offence by a state. The crimes which can lead to capital punishment are called capital crimes or capital offenceses. Earlier the killing of criminals and political oppenents was prevelent in almost every civilization.

The supreme court of india ruled in 1983 that the death penality should be imposed only in the 'rarest of the rare cases'  are murder bank robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the nation and abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces . In recent years the death penality has been imposed under new anti-terrorism legislation for people convicted of terrorist activities

Muhammed Afsal (Afsal Guru) was convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 2001 indian parliament attack and was sentenced to death. The supreme court of india upheld the sentence , ruling that the attack " shocked the conscience of the society at large ".Afsal was scheduled to be excuted on october 20 , 2006 but the sentence was stayed.

According to Amnesty international a human rights NGO ,death sentence is retained by the legal system of only at present  while nearly two thirds of the countries of the world have either