SC gives relief to death row convict: illiterate rustic

Alam had beheaded his mother and fled with her head,leaving the torso behind.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the death penalty of a man who murdered his mother for the failure of his marriage,calling him an illiterate rustic with virtually no control over his emotions.

In a judgment,a Bench led by Justice A K Patnaik reduced the death penalty awarded to Absar Alam by the Patna High Court,which had found the crime extremely brutal,grotesque,diabolical and revolting and,thus qualifying the test of being the rarest of rare.

Alam had beheaded his mother and fled with her head,leaving the torso behind. The High Court said he deserved death.

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Reducing the verdict to life sentence,the apex court said the crime however did not seem to be pre-meditated.

Justice Patnaik,who wrote the judgment,observed that circumstances point to an act committed on an impulse,in an uncontrollable fit of rage all mitigating factors which work against the award of capital punishment by a court.

The Bench found that the murder took place a few days after Alams wife had left for her maternal home. He had since been accusing his mother for the marital discord.

He was an illiterate rustic and a cultivator residing in a village with virtually no control over his emotions and over-reacted impulsively to the situation and severed the neck of his mother, the court explained.

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It further said he is no doubt guilty of murder and has to suffer the punishment of life imprisonment normally awarded for the offence,but should not be condemned to death.

The Bench notes that what swayed the mind of the High Court would have been the fact that Alam killed his own mother,and that too in such brutal fashion.