Jamshedpur, Sept. 12: After getting their capital punishment commuted into a life term, convicts in the 1997 quadruple murder case, Chaitali Bhowmik and Syed Rizwan have now appealed for pardon.

The East Singhbhum deputy commissioner?s office has received a letter from the apex court asking the administration to clarify its stand in the murder that had rocked the steel city in 1997.

Chaitali Bhowmik and her lover-husband Syed Rizwan had butchered four persons of the Bhowmik family in cold blood at Ghorabandha under Govindpur police station in January 1997.

The victims included Chaitali?s parents, her teenaged brother and her grandmother.

Chaitali and Rizwan butchered the entire family over two days at their double-storied house in Ghorabandha and dumped the bodies in the septic tank.

The bodies were found by the police when Chaitali?s uncle Anupam Roy visited the house six months after the incident. The first additional district judge, S.K. Murari, in 2000 tried the accused and on the basis of the material evidence and witness accounts convicted the couple in the case. The court had awarded capital punishment to the duo. However, the execution of the sentence was subject to the approval of the chief justice of Jharkhand High Court. However, Chaitali gave birth to a baby boy while in Sakchi jail and appealed to the high court to commute the death sentence.

After almost three-and-a-half years, a single bench of Jharkhand High Court in July last year commuted capital punishment into rigorous life imprisonment.

According to sources, soon after the reprieve, Chaitali and Rizwan approached the apex court for amnesty, pleading that the term of punishment be further reduced as it was their first crime.

The apex court has written to the East Singhbhum district administration to make its stand clear on whether it would oppose the appeal or not. The deputy commissioner has forwarded the letter to the legal department for follow-up action.