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Capital punishment is legal in India although rarely used. Between 1975 and 1991, about 40 people were executed, though there was a period between 1995 and 2004 when there were no executions. Anti-death penalty activists dispute those figures, claiming much higher numbers on Death Row and actual executions.

In August 2004, a 41-year-old man, Dhananjoy Chatterjee, was executed for raping and killing a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Calcutta. This was the country's first execution since 1995^[1] and the first execution in West Bengal since 1993 when Kartik Sil and Sukumar Burman were hanged.^[2]

In 2005, were about a dozen people on the country's Death Row. Many levels of appeals are available through different courts and India allows state governors and the president to grant clemency.

The death penalty is to be used in the "rarest of rare" cases according to the Supreme Court of India, although the meaning of this phrase is not clearly defined. Capital punishment can be imposed for murder, instigating a child's suicide, treason, acts of terrorism, or a second conviction for drug trafficking.

The death penalty is usually carried out by hanging. After a 1983 challenge to this method, the Supreme Court ruled that hanging did not involve torture, barbarity, humiliation or degradation.

It was reported in 2006 that number of mercy petitions pending with President Abdul Kalam from convicts on death row stands at 20, including 12 were submitted when K. R. Narayanan was the president. In May 2004, Kalam referred several of these petitions to the home ministry for a possible review. The legal department of the ministry reiterated the advice given to him by the previous government that those cases did not deserve the president’s mercy ^[3].

A major controversy exists as to wether or not to execute Mohammad Afzal, a Kashmiri militant who attacked the Indian parliament building.

1. ^ INDOlink: Dhananjoy Chatterjee Hanged In Kolkata Jail
2. ^ Rediff: Dhananjoy hanging: August 14, 0430 IST
3. ^ India eNews: Kalam to examine Afzal's clemency plea closely

• Asia Death Penalty blog focuses on the use of the death penalty in Asia
• The Death Penalty in India Briefing for the EU-India Summit, 7 September 2005
• India and the death penalty Sanjoy Majumder, BBC News.