Want of hangman Capital Punishment languishing

A bizarre news surprised me when I came across a headline that said that a capital punishment is fading in want of hangman.. I went through and learnt that the person Piara Singh was arrested in a murder case in 1991. His three sons Sarabjit, Gurdev and Satnam, were also subsequently charged with. He was awarded with capital punishment in 1996. Since then on he has been living in a 12x6 room and waiting for the hangman or the saviour to let him escape from that filthy world..

The octogenarian Pira Singh now neither can see nor even move properly. Piara Singh a resident of Baserke village in Amritsar, were found guilty of firing at a gathering to celebrate a marriage in November, 1991. His three sons were also charged with this case. As reported there had been an old enmity that compelled him to commit this. The violence caused death of 17 people. Thought Piara Singh prayed in his defence that the incident was a spillover of an earlier altercation between him and his neighbouring family that injured his nephew and killed his servant.

According to Navkiran Singh, the lawyer and a human rights activist ‘‘I was moved by his plight when I accidentally stumbled upon him when I visited the Amritsar jail in 2006 to collect data on death row inmates, I decided I would fight for him. But now Piara just prays for death. It is horrifying.’’

He had also prayed for mercy. The petition has been pending since 1997 in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Piara suffering in Dementia has developed osteoarthritis in both knee joints and acid peptic disease. As a result of prolonged incarceration Piara has symptoms of mild psychotic disorder which at times results in him hallucinating

While his initial mercy petition is gathering dust in Delhi, closer home a PIL was filed in Punjab and Haryana high court in August 2006, pleading, among other things, that it is inhuman to keep convicts like Piara in solitary confinement and that they should be kept with other convicts. It also pleaded that Piara’s death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.