The President Pratibha Devisingh Patil has commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence given to eight murder convicts in two separate cases.<br/>The President gave her order on June 15 on mercy petitions submitted by Shyam Manohar and five others, and Dharmendra Kumar and Narendra Yadav.<br/>Shyam Manohar along with Sheo Ram, Prakash, Suresh, Ravinder and Harish from Uttar Pradesh were on death row since October 1997 for killing five persons including a 10-year old boy.<br/>The murders took place to avenge the killing of brother of one of the convicts. The Supreme Court had in 1997 upheld the death penalty awarded to them by the High Court. They had filed a mercy petition before the President soon after the verdict.<br/>The file was re-submitted to President's Secretariat on February 23, 2010.<br/>Dharmendra Kumar and Narendra Yadav of Uttar Pradesh had been also been convicted of killing five members of a family.<br/>In this case, the trial court had awarded death sentence to the duo in 1995 but it was not upheld by the High Court.<br/>However, in 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence given by the trial court.<br/>Before granting mercy in these two cases, 77 petitions have been decided by the Presidents during the last three decades out of which in only 10 cases, the sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment.<br/>