Curtains are finally set to come down on one of India’s most squalid crime sagas with President Pranab Mukherjee last month rejecting the mercy petitions of half-sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit. 
 
 The duo, along with their mother Anjana Gavit, stand accused of the kidnapping of 13 children and the murder of 10 of them across various districts in Western Maharashtra. In 2006, they were convicted by the Supreme Court of five of those murders. 
 
 Since then, a Damocles sword has been hanging over the fate of the duo, set to earn notoriety as the first women to be hanged in the history of Independent India. 
 
 The two-week buffer period before their execution came to an end last Saturday. 
 
 ‘No intimation yet’ 
 
 
 
 “There has been no intimation on the issue from the State Home Ministry as yet. There has been no word on the black warrant,” said Yogesh Desai, Superintendent, Yerwada Central Jail, while refusing to comment on the preparations. 
 
 The sisters, hailing from Kolhapur, were initiated into crime by their mother while still in their teens. They were sentenced to death by the Kolhapur Sessions Court in 2001. Since then, they have been languishing in Yerwada Jail. 
 
 Between 1990 and 1996, they allegedly killed nine children — all under the age of 10 — by starving them or banging their heads (especially those of toddlers) against walls or electricity poles. The kidnappings and murders were spread over Pune, Thane, Kalyan, Kolhapur, and Nashik. 
 
 “The sisters’ modus operandi was using small children, often toddlers, as diversions to distract the public while one of them was engaged in stealing purses. When in the danger of being caught, the other used to throw or bang the child to the ground or any hard surface. The object was to elicit sympathy by manipulating the public’s emotions,” says human rights lawyer and activist, Asim Sarode. 
 
 Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Sarode, who, at one time, assisted the Apex Court judge with the case, recounts the eerie calmness with which Renuka Shinde answered his questions about the murders, all the time stroking a stray cat. 
 
 “In one of their particularly gruesome murders, they hung a two-year-old upside down, bashed his head against the wall and chopped him to pieces. They then went for a movie at a local theatre in Kolhapur, eating bhel puri. All the while, the bag, with the chopped remains remained under their feet,” he says. 
 
 “While I’m professionally and personally against the capital punishment, this is indeed one of the rarest of the rare cases where the perpetrators deserve the death sentence,” remarked Mr. Sarode. 
 
 Files appeal 
 
 
 
 Following the end of the buffer period, the duo has filed an appeal at the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. According to the sisters’ defence counsel in Kolhapur, Manik Mulik, the murders had been committed by their mother, Anjana, who died two years after the duo’s arrest in 1996. 
 
 “The case against the sisters primarily rests on the statement of Renuka’s husband, Kiran Shinde, who turned approver naming Anjana as having carried out the kidnappings and killings. As Anjana died even before the trial began, the police made him change his statement in which he blamed his wife (Renuka) and sister-in-law (Seema Gavit),” said Mr. Mulik. ||||| Advocate will move Bombay High Court on Tuesday. Women, who are lodged in Yerwada jail, killed kids between 1990 and 1996. 
 
 
 
 The Kolhapur sisters, who were set to become the first women convicts to be hanged in Independent India, might get temporary reprieve. Challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions, the advocate Sudeep Jaiswal will move the Bombay High Court on Tuesday. 
 
 
 
 The sisters, Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit were sentenced to death in 2001 for kidnapping 13 children and killing nine of them between June 1990 and October 1996. They were helped by their mother Anjana Gavit and Renuka's husband Kiran Shinde. They forced the children to help them commit petty thefts and pick pockets. Anjana Gavit died in jail while Kiran Shinde became an approver. 
 
 
 
 Till the time the court decides on the petition, their execution will be stayed. Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, Jaiswal said he has informed the jail authorities about the move in writing. 
 
 
 
 Additional Director General of Police (Jails) Meeran Borwankar said, "We are following all legal procedures and the recent Supreme Court guidelines." 
 
 
 
 The sisters, lodged at Yerwada Jail, were notified about the rejection of their mercy petition verbally earlier in August and the 14-day buffer period before their execution ends this Saturday. 
 
 
 
 According to Jaiswal, the order sent to the jail authorities read, "The report of communication of rejection of mercy petition of condemned prisoner shall be submitted with physical and mental health report."A minimum buffer period of 14 days is given between the receipt of communication of rejection of mercy petition and execution, so that the convicts can prepare themselves, settle affairs with family members or avail any judicial remedy. 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, Jaiswal said, "I met the two sisters recently. They are in solitary confinement. Their physical condition has deteriorated and they look like living skeletons. Their weight has dropped below 35 kg. A Supreme Court judgment states convicts in ill health cannot be executed." He added, "In the case of Nalini, the key accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the execution was stayed because there was a delay of two years. In this case, there has been a delay of over six years."
– Serial killer sisters, who kidnapped and murdered at least five children, are poised to become the first women hanged in India, reports the Washington Post. “This is indeed one of the rarest of the rare cases where the perpetrators deserve the death sentence,” a human rights lawyer tells the Hindu. Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit were charged in 2001 with 13 kidnappings and 10 murders, and convicted of five killings, reports the Telegraph. Their killing spree began in 1990 when the girls were teen pickpockets and their mother told them to kidnap her ex's daughter, their half-sister. After that, mother and daughters kidnapped street kids ages 1 to 5, turned them into pickpockets and decoys, then killed them. Their mother died in prison, the Mumbai Mirror reports. Some of the sisters' ghastly crimes: They killed an infant by bashing his head against an electric pole, dropped a 7-month old to stop its crying, bludgeoned a boy while he hung upside down, and dismembered another and stuffed his parts in a bag, the Post reports. The killing ended as it began—with a revenge kidnapping and murder in 1996, also plotted by their mother as revenge against her ex. The 9-year-old, his daughter, was dumped in a field and an eventual investigation led to the sisters' other crimes. The sisters say they're innocent and wrongly convicted. A recent plea for mercy was rejected.