What greater mental assault one can go through than when we tell a person that he is going to be killed in two weeks, in three days, or “tomorrow will be the last Tuesday of your life here….” These men/women on death row have nightmares everyday: the guards are coming, it’s my time, I say “No, no, no!” I struggle and I wake up. I look around. I am in my cell. It was a dream. But…they will certainly come for me, soon. We may have seen movies about death row prisoners and the death penalty. The death row prisoner is brought to the death chamber, the jailor looks at the time, nods his head and then the hangman pulls a lever and the body gets suspended in the air and a person is executed. Is this what we see in movies? Is this the same in real life?
How is a person executed? How is the death warrant signed? What happens just before an execution? What is said to the convict? These are questions that may rise in our minds when we talk about the death penalty. But my question is: What does he/she go through as he/she knows that he/she will be executed in a few hours time? What happens to a convict just before the hanging? Once the date of the hanging is decided, the convict is taken out of the death cell and put in another cell. How does this human being spend the rest of his days and hours? What do their families go through?
The death row prisoners’ only hope will be the review petition, the curative petition and the mercy petition which will be with the President of India. The moment the petition is dismissed, a black warrant will be issued by the Patiala House Court. This is the last step before the final death sentence is carried out. After the signing of the black warrant, the court decides the date and time of the execution by looking at the suggestions and preparations. The death row prisoner is allowed to see the person he wants to meet for the last time. He is picked up around four in the morning of the execution day and asked to bathe and wear new clothes. One can imagine the agonizing moments the convict goes through. Usually, when someone dies, we bathe them and make them wear a new dress. But, here it is just the opposite. A human being prepares himself to be killed, to be hanged as he bathes himself and wears a new dress. Imagine how a human being can walk towards the death chamber! Sometimes the convict is carried by the prison guards, as the condemned person cannot walk.
Death Penalty: What Does It Achieve?
India has carried out eight executions since 2000, the last having been in 2020. Jyothi Singh Pandey was a young woman. She loved her parents. She loved her brothers. She loved cinema and life. She was training to be a physiotherapist and dreaming of being a doctor. Her dreams all were shattered on 16 December 2012. On March 20, 2020, Mukesh, Akshay Kumar Singh, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Kumar were executed for the December 2012 gang-rape and murder of Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya). Prison Ministry India volunteers from Delhi tried their level best for restorative justice by meeting the victim’s parents.
Sr Lini Sheeja MSC
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