A local courts orders directing Punjab state prison authorities to hang the alleged Babbar Khalsa terrorist,Balwant Singh,till death,has left the state police top brass in a fix. There are no hangmen in Punjab and the neighbouring states and with no convict having been executed in recent times,the Punjab police officers have been forced to dig out the decades-old Punjab jail manual for the procedure on how to hang a prisoner on death row. The absence of a hangman in Punjab and other neighbouring states has left the state police force facing two major challenges: To locate a executioner in the country and secondly to determine the procedure on how a hangman would implement the court order. Balwant Singh,who is presently lodged in Patiala jail,was allegedly among the 11 Babbar Khalsa International terrorists,who were arrested on charges of assassinating Beant Singh on August 31,1995. The court has fixed March 31 as the date of his hanging. The last hanging of a prisoner in Punjab was carried out in 1983 and since then,no convict has been hanged in the state. The last convict to face the noose in the country,was Dhanonjoy Chatterjee,who was convicted on charges of rape and murder and was hanged till death in Kolkata on August 14,2004. The then hangman,Nata Mullick,who was posted in Alipur Central Jail in Kolkata,died a few years ago. There is no hangman in Kolkata,these days,as the only one - Nata Mullick has also died a few years ago,said an official posted at the Alipur Central Jail,Kolkata. The only hangman with the Haryana Prisons Department ,Kalu Ram,also died a few years ago and the post has been lying vacant. Shashi Kant,Director General of Prisons,Punjab,said: The court orders were received by us this morning and frankly speaking,we are yet to find out the procedure,as how to go about it. The state of Punjab does not have a hangman and the last hanging was done in 1983. Even the neighbouring states,to my knowledge,dont have a hangman. We are searching the jail manual for the procedures,which need to be adopted for the hanging of a convict,because all these years,there has never been any such execution in this part of the country. Haryanas Director General of Prisons,Rakesh Malik,said: Haryana also does not have any hangman. To the best of my memory,I could not recall of any convict having been hanged till death in Haryana,in the last at least 15-20 years. I feel,even Himachal Pradesh and J&K dont have a hangman. Though there is a provision in the Haryana jail manual,which says that in the absence of a hangman,the execution could be carried out by any trained person,whom the Jail Superintendent finds fit for the job; its not clear as who could be this trained person and how to go about it,said a senior Haryana Police officer. A special court of Judge Ravi Kumar Sondhi had awarded the death sentence to Balwant Singh and another convict Jagtar Singh Hawara,on July 31,2007. While Hawara filed an appeal in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and successfully had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment; Balwant Singh refused to appeal against his death sentence.
