Hanging in India

The surviving terrorist from the Mumbai event has been sentenced to hang. The story is online at the Guardian. India currently has 52 people on “death row,” awaiting execution of their sentences. I hadn’t realized that India has not carried out a sentence of capital punishment since 2004, and prior to that not for nine years.

China, with a roughly similar number of citizens, but where the data on capital punishment are secret, is estimated to kill somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people a year through the legal process.

One of the reasons cited for the infrequency of hangings in India is the procedural and bureaucratic tangle that has to be negotiated before the sentence can be executed. According to the Guardian, to that reason there can now be added the fact that India currently has no executioner.