Death penalty for child murder sisters

INDIA: India's Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for two sisters convicted five years ago of kidnapping 13 children to join a gang of thieves and murdering at least five of them.

"The Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty against two women Renukai (Shinde) and Seema Gavit, which was earlier also confirmed by the Mumbai court (in 2004)," Anirudh Mayee, a government lawyer told news channel Aaj Tak.

Renuka Shinde and her step-sister Seema Gavit were believed to have murdered all 13 children, some of them just toddlers, but only five bodies were recovered by police in the western state of Maharashtra, news reports said.

They were convicted in 2001 after evidence in a trial said they forced the children to commit robberies at temples and fairs and then brutally murdered them, according to Mayee.

"It was very painful. The evidence was so sensitive that anyone who reads it will be emotionally disturbed," Mayee said.

India's Supreme Court rarely authorises executions and when it does they are regularly delayed indefinitely or commuted by the president.

The last execution - and the first in nearly a decade - was in August 2004 when a man convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl was hanged.

New Delhi,.Friday, AFP