... indian rapist and murderer pays with his life
excerpt from etaiwan.news - link below
a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn wednesday in india's first execution in nine years. dhananjay chatterjee, 39, was executed after spending the last 13 years in solitary confinement.
"the execution of dhananjay chatterjee alias dhana has duly been carried out at the scheduled time at 4.30 a.m.," the prison said in a statement.
chatterjee's shrouded body was later cremated in an electric furnace, police said. some hindu funeral rites could not be completed because of the absence of family members.
although 70 protesters gathered at 2am and held anti-death penalty banners, at 4:30 am they were silent for a moment, then departed. some human rights groups in west bengal had objected to the execution, but support was marginal.
before climbing to the gallows, chatterjee, the son of a brahmin priest, said a prayer, and religious songs were played on a cassette player at his request.
cheterjee was “absolutely fine, in a normal mood.” inspector-general of prisons joydeb chakraborty told reporters. “just before the hanging, he told jail officials 'god bless you,'"
india's supreme court ruled in 1983 that the death penalty be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases." the last execution was in 1995, when an auto-rickshaw driver convicted of the serial murders of prostitutes was hanged.
chatterjee and his family had maintained his innocence. president a.p.j. abdul
kalam last week became the second president to turn down chatterjee's clemency plea, while the supreme court rejected another appeal last thursday.
although several convicts have been sentenced to death in india the past decade, none have been executed, because of appeals pending before higher courts or because they have won clemency.
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