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-The Hindu
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Haryana's Sonia, daughter of Relu Ram Punia, former Haryana MLA, might become the first woman in India's history to be hanged as President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected her mercy petition.
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Government sources say the President has also rejected mercy petitions of at least six other death convicts.
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Sonia was convicted along with her husband Sanjeev in 2007 of killing eight members of her family, including her father, over a property dispute in 2001. They are currently lodged in Ambala jail.
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Notably, Nalini was awarded the death penalty for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the intervention of Sonia Gandhi.
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Mr. Mukherjee has also rejected the mercy petitions of four convicts from U.P. - Gurmeet Singh (for killing 13 of his family members in 1986), Jafar Ali (who murdered his wife and five daughters), and Suresh and Ramji (brothers who killed five of their relatives in a property dispute).
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The mercy plea of Dharampal, a rape convict from Haryana who later murdered five members of the victim's family, while on parole in 1993, was also rejected.
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Earlier, Mr. Mukherjee had rejected mercy pleas of the Mumbai attack case convict Ajmal Kasab and the Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru. Sensing law and order problems, the two were hanged secretly by jail authorities in Pune and Delhi respectively.
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