Panaji: Deepak Surlakar, the father of Mandar Surlakar—who was kidnapped and murdered in 2006—has approached the high court opposing the state sentence review board’s premature release recommendation to the fourth life convict, Nafiyaz Sheikh. Sheikh had filed a petition challenging the state’s decision rejecting the board’s recommendation for premature release after the high court on Aug 6 ordered the release of Rohan Dhungat, Ryan Pinto, and Shankar Tiwari.Surlakar has also filed an intervention application in Sheikh’s petition seeking premature release. Three life convicts were released last week on the Aug 6 orders of the high court. Sheikh approached the high court after it released the three life convicts, who were released on recommendations of the sentence review board. The HC quashed the order of the state rejecting the recommendation of the board to release the convicts who completed 14 years of actual imprisonment minus parole and more than 20 years of total imprisonment.The court, while releasing the convicts, had observed that it is alive to the emotional disturbance and loss that Deepak and his family suffered and may perhaps continue, to suffer but added that courts have adopted a “reformative approach rather than a retributive one”.The decision to direct the life convicts’ release “does not in any manner reflect any apathy towards the victim family’s emotional resistance”, the court said, adding that punishment is justified only in so far as it serves a future oriented purpose, mainly prevention, reform, and restoration of order.
