Ready to hang Nirbhaya convicts, says UP hangman

Pawan Jallad (executioner), a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Meerut town, about 450 kilometres from here, is likely to hang the convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder in Delhi's Tihar jail on January 22.

''I am ready to hang them...I am waiting for instructions from the authorities,'' Pawan said in Meerut on Tuesday shortly after a Delhi's Patiala House court issued death warrants against the four accused.

Fifty-five-year-old Pawan belongs to a four-generation family of hangmen. ''It (execution) is my job....the convicts committed a heinous crime and deserve death penalty,'' he remarked.

He said that four separate ropes would be required to hang the four convicts. ''The ropes will be checked...every convict will be weighed before being executed,'' he said.

A senior police official here said that the executioner would reach Delhi soon after being called. ''We have already informed the Tihar Jail officials about the availability of the executioner,'' he added.

The Tihar jail administration had, a few months back, sounded the UP prison officials for two hangmen for likely execution of the four Nirbhaya convicts.

Additional Director General (jails) Anand Kumar had then said that the state government had received a letter from Tihar jail administration to provide two hangmen.

Presently, there are two certified hangmen in Uttar Pradesh prisons. One in Meerut jail while the other obe in Lucknow jail.

Nirbhaya, a paramedic student, was brutally raped and tortured by five people, including a juvenile, in a moving bus in December 2012. She died at the hospital 13 days later. The incident had triggered a nationwide outrage.