Smt. Pratibha Patil
Office of the President
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi 110 004
Delhi,
India

Your Excellency,

I am writing, on the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty, to express my deep concern that your country has not yet abolished the death penalty.
The death penalty violates the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It has no place in a modern criminal justice system.
An execution, just like torture, involves a deliberate assault on a prisoner. Even so-called "humane" methods such as lethal injection can entail excruciating suffering.
Capital punishment is irrevocable. All judicial systems make mistakes, and as long as the death penalty persists, innocent people will be executed.
It is also discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, the powerless and the marginalized.
Furthermore, the death penalty does not deter crime more than other punishments. In Canada the homicide rate has fallen by 40 per cent since 1975; the death penalty was abolished for murder in 1976.
On 18 December 2007 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62/149 endorsing the call for a worldwide moratorium on executions. The resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority of 104 UN member states in favour, 54 countries voted against and 29 abstentions. Amnesty International welcomes this timely resolution as a clear recognition of the solid and long-standing trend towards global abolition of the death penalty. As of 10 October 2008, 137 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
In view of the above I therefore urge your government to take a step closer to abolishing the death penalty. and call on the Indian government to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty as provided by the UN General Assembly resolution 62/149.