Shocker: Pranab Rejects Govt Recommendations

Pranab Mukherjee is going to be the first-ever president to emphasize his powers with regard to the government, by rejecting its recommendations while considering mercy petitions of death-row convicts.

Pranab, whose term completes in the middle of this year, has on January 1, commuted the death sentences of four convicts, to life imprisonment, in the Bara massacre case. They are Krishna Mochi, Nanhe Lal Mochi, Bir Kuer Paswan and Dharmendra Singh.

In the Bara massacre, which took place in 1992, 34 upper-caste Bhumihars were killed allegedly by the activists of the Maoist Communist Centre, now CPI-Maoist, to avenge an earlier massacre of Dalits by the Bhumihars. Three of the four convicts who were sentenced to death in the case are Dalits.