India's hangman to sate 'bloodthirsty' mood

With a fluidity that suggested considerable practice, Pawan Kumar picked up a rope and demonstrated how to tie a hangman's noose.

He showed precisely where the loop should be fitted to ensure things went smoothly. And finally he showed how either he or his grandfather would ease back the lever controlling the trapdoor and despatch the condemned prisoner to his death.

"There is a lot of process that goes into getting the noose correct so that the person does not suffer," he said. "I know because of my grandfather. He explained to me the science behind it."

India is in search of an executioner and Kumar may be in the frame. The nation has long been in two minds about the death penalty, reserved only for "the rarest of rare" cases, and has not executed anyone for seven years. There are currently about 350 prisoners on death row.

But amid growing pressure on the Government to show it is being "tough" on security and following the recent rejection of mercy petitions of several death-row inmates, there is the potential for half-a-dozen executions within a matter of months.

A pressing problem is the shortage of hangmen. When President Pratibha Patil announced in May she was rejecting the appeals of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Mahendra Nath Das, the prison authorities in Assam, where Das is held, admitted they retained no hangman.

At Tihar jail in Delhi, where Bhullar is held, officials have also said they have no executioner. "The last execution here was 22 years ago," said the legal officer, Sunil Gupta.

Kumar is adamant he should be the man to fill the void. His grandfather was a celebrated executioner and, following his father's death this year, Kumar applied for the position. So far, the 48-year-old has undergone two trial demonstrations.

Kumar assisted his grandfather on a number of occasions. The first time he helped was the execution in 1992 of two brothers convicted of murder. "After that first execution there was no emotional feeling. I was not frightened because I had wanted to do it since childhood."

Not everyone feels that way. The man who carried out India's most recent execution was Nata Mullick, who in 2004 put to death a man convicted of the rape and murder of a schoolgirl. Before he died last year, he said he was haunted by the faces of the 25 people he had hanged.

Mullick's nephew was to have inherited the position but found himself ill-suited. Now the opportunity has fallen to his son, Mahadeb Mullick, who has said he is unenthusiastic about taking on the role given the way "hangmen are used and discarded".

Others worry about bad karma and its possible impact on a future reincarnation. Some fear social exclusion. Another veteran hangman, Amhadullah Khan, 58, from Lucknow, also doubts he will ever again work the gallows' lever. Khan said: "I don't want to speak to the media about the barbaric profession. I don't support capital punishment."

The first of a flurry of executions may take place in Tamil Nadu, where three men convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, were scheduled to have been hanged on September 9 until a court ordered a two-month stay. Jail officials said a member of the prison staff would carry out the executions if they proceeded.

The Government seeks to project itself as being firm amid allegations it has not done enough to prevent terror attacks, such as the bomb set off outside the Delhi high court last week which killed more than a dozen people. Fear of attacks has created a mood for revenge, admit campaigners against the death penalty.

"There has been increasing criticism from the opposition that the Government is soft on terror, often citing the failure to hang those convicted for terrorism," said Meenakshi Ganguly of Human Rights Watch. "Unfortunately, a series of recent violent attacks have also led to ... bloodthirsty demands for retribution."

- INDEPENDENT