Lucknow: At a time when the prison in Uttar Pradesh is getting ready for what could be independent India’s first-ever hanging of a woman convict, Shabnam Ali’s 12-year-old son, Mohammed Taj, has appealed to President Ram Nath Kovind to commute her death sentence. Notably, Shabnam was sentenced to death for killing seven members of her family, including a baby, in 2008. “I love my mother. I have only one demand for President uncle, that he doesn’t let my mother be hanged,” Taj said.
Standing on a chair, he was holding a slate with a written request seeking “forgiveness” for his mother. “It is up to the President to forgive her. But I have faith,” he said. The appeal says, “President uncle ji, please forgive my mother”
Taj, who was separated from his mother after she was sent to jail, is living in a children’s home since then but misses his mother. However, Taj visits his mother frequently.
The urge from her son comes at a time when the death warrant for executing her at the Mathura Jail is due to be signed anytime. In his appeal to the President, Taj has urged him to pardon his mother`s heinous crime.
Prior to this, Shabnam had also filed a fresh mercy petition before UP Governor Anandiben Patel. However, her mercy petition came while preparations are underway at the Mathura Jail to execute her.
However, her mercy petition has already been rejected by the Governor and President and is likely to be hanged soon after a death warrant is issued. Currently, she is lodged in Rampur district jail while Salim is lodged in Agra prison.
Notably, the final date is yet to be decided on her hanging by a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha as requested by the state government. But a jail in Mathura, the only one in the country where there is an execution chamber for women, is prepping for a possible hanging.
Shabnam and her lover Saleem were accused of hacking to death seven of her family, including her parents, her brothers, sister-in-law and 10-month-old nephew on 14 April 2008. The incident happened after she became upset with her family for not accepting her relationship with a man who was less educated as Shabnam had post-graduate degrees in English and Geography while the man she wanted to marry, Saleem, was a school dropout.
At the time of her conviction, Shabnam was pregnant and Taj was handed over to foster parents because children born to convicts cannot stay in jail beyond six years.