Condemned To Wait For A Qualified Hangman

By Wasbir Hussain

Guwahati, Jun 9 : Mahendra Nath Das was convicted of a murder so gruesome that India's courts gave him a rare death sentence and the president rejected his plea for clemency. Only one thing is keeping him from the gallows: there is no hangman.

It has been more than two decades since any convict was executed in Assam, and with no qualified executioners remaining, officials in this northeastern state are scouring the rest of the country for a candidate.

In all of India, where the death penalty is handed down in only the "rarest of rare" cases, there have been only two hangings in the past 15 years.

Das was convicted for publicly decapitating a victim. On April 24 1996, he snuck up behind Hara Kunta as the rival official in the local transporters' union sipped tea in a busy market in Assam's capital, Gauhati.

With a swing of his machete, Das decapitated Kunta. Then he carried the bloody head by the hair to a nearby police station screaming, "I have killed him."

Courts ruled that the public nature of the crime, combined with Das's horrifying walk through the streets, warranted the death penalty.

"We have started the process of putting up the gallows," said Brojen Das, the jailer of the prison at Jorhat, 300km east of Gauhati, who shares a common regional surname with the condemned man. But it is unclear when an executioner will be found to use it.

Prison authorities have written to their counterparts in other states but have gotten no response, said a prison official.

Qualified executioners - who know how to prepare the rope and tie the knot so as to cause a swift death - are scarce in India.

The last hanging took place in 2004, when a security guard was hanged in a Kolkata jail for the rape and murder of a teenage girl.

Nata Mullick, India's most famous hangman, came out of retirement at 84 to carry out that execution, earning $435 and a job for his grandson at the jail.

A third-generation hangman, Mullick executed 25 of the 55 people who died on the gallows since independence in 1947.

"It's an art: your skills need to be honed," he said in an interview.

But Mullick died in 2009 and no one has stepped up to take his place. This could have implications for other death row prisoners, including Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

Das's relatives continue to appeal for mercy.