Centre okays death sentence for hijackers
The Cabinet has cleared amendments to a proposed anti-hijacking Bill
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-07-30 02:56 GMT
New Delhi: The Modi government — at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening-— approved the provision of death penalty for the offence of hijacking. The Cabinet has cleared amendments to a proposed anti-hijacking Bill that will become a new anti-hijacking law. The new Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2015, is now expected to be placed before Parliament. The most important feature of the Bill will be the “enhanced punishment” which provides for the death penalty for hijackers in the event of loss of life.
If there is no loss of life, the hijackers will get life imprisonment. The new proposals aimed at strengthening existing anti-hijacking legal provisions include confiscation of property of the moveable and immovable property of hijackers.
Other proposals include “enhanced definition of hijacking”, which basically means that anyone who organises and directs others in the act of hijacking will also be termed hijackers. There will also be increased jurisdiction which means that hijackers will be put on trial in India if the offence of hijacking is committed against or by an Indian citizen wherever the offence.
The government on Wednesday approved amendments to an anti-hijacking Bill that provides for death penalty even if ground handling staff and airport personnel are killed during such acts, besides broadening the definition of hijacking. In the earlier proposed Bill, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the event of death of hostages, such as flight crew, passengers and security personnel.
The Cabinet cleared the amendments at its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday evening. The Anti-Hijacking Bill 2014, introduced in the Rajya Sabha in December last year, was referred to the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture.