New Delhi: "You just can't stop the cases like Nirbhaya and Hyderabad veterinarian gang rape and murder by doing nothing. You have to execute the death penalty in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case as soon as possible to set an example. Convict the accused of Hyderabad case also as soon as possible. Then only such gruesome crimes will stop. Until and unless such people are not hanged till death, they won't fear the law," says the country's only executioner Pawan.
Pawan, who is currently in Meerut, told IANS on Tuesday: "If the government had expedited on executing the hanging of the Nirbhaya case convicts, the Hyderabad case might not have happened. Why are we keeping them at Tihar jail? Such criminals should be convicted as early as possible so as to set an example otherwise you can't stop such crimes."
"I am ready to execute the hanging of the convicts. I only need two to three days to hang them. I will give a trial and do the hanging," said Pawan.
"I come from the family of executioners. I am the fourth generation after my great grandfather (Lakshman Jallad), grandfather (Kalu Ram Jallad) and father Mammu Jallad)," Pawan told IANS.
For the first time, Pawan executed a hanging at Patiala Central Jail with his grandfather, when he hanged two brothers. Pawan, who has executed five hangings with his grandfather till now, said: "When I executed my first hanging with my grandfather, I was 20-22 year old now I am 58."
Pawan said that the last execution that he did with his grandfather was of a convict in the Bulandshahar gangrape and murder case in 1988 at the Central Jail.
Pawan said that as of now he is living on Rs 5,000 per month, which he gets from the Uttar Pradesh government from the Meerut Jail. He said: "Earlier we didn't get much money for executing the hanging, but now we get Rs 25,000 per hanging. Though it is difficult to survive at such a meagre amount, but I feel happy that I ended the life of an evil."
Meanwhile, in a conversation with IANS on Tuesday night, Delhi Jail Director General Sandeep Goyal said: "It is true that there is no authorised trained person (executioner) in the Tihar jail or Mandoli Jail who can perform the duty of hanging. Still there is nothing to worry about. When such a situation will come (Nirbhaya's criminals will get the death-warrant to hang them), then everything will be managed. We will call one from some other state."
Sandeep Goyal further told IANS: "It is not as if someone is specially authorised to be hanged. It is up to the jail administration and the state government that, whoever they think is legally better off for this work, can get it done (hanging the convict). Just in this work (at the time of hanging the convict), caution is the most important point."
IANS also spoke to Sunil Gupta, a former jailer of Tihar Jail, considered to be Asia's most secure jail . Gupta has recently written a sensational book on the jail life called 'Black Warrant'. He told IANS: "In my 35-year job, eight people were hanged in front of me in the Tihar Jail.
"These included Ranga Billa, Indira Gandhi's assassin Satwant-Kehar Singh, Kashmiri terrorist Maqbool Butt, Vidya Jain's killer brother duo Jagtar-Kartar Singh, Afzal Guru, convict in the Parliament attack. There was no probolem in these executions. Yes, there should be an expert for this work. Any lapse in serving the death order can prove extremely dangerous. However, so far no such mistake has ever been happened at the time of execution. "
(Sanjeev Kumar Singh Chauhan can be contacted at sanjeev.c@ians.in)