Anatomy of an Indian prison hanging

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from the book ‘Black Warrant’—which is also the basis of the eponymous Netflix show.  These are insider stories of the (in)famous Tihar Jail from a veteran warden Sunil Gupta. We deliberately chose this uncomfortable, detailed account of the preparations for a prison hanging. It offers a front-row view of the reality of the death penalty in India.

The below excerpt is a gruesome yet compelling account of the rules and regulations involved in hanging. Excerpted with permission from and published by Roli Books, ‘Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer’ by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury.

On the subject of relatives, a 1970s manual from Maharashtra prisons says that adult male relatives of the inmate and other ‘respectable male adults’—not more than 12 in number—may be allowed to watch the hanging (female relatives have never been allowed to be present). But can you just imagine what would happen if families did witness the hanging? What if they saw their loved one’s head being yanked off? The actual act is gruesome enough without having to put them through this.

There are detailed instructions about who can be present at the hanging. Apart from the doctor who issues the certificate declaring the prisoner dead, there are 10 constables, two head constables or an equal number of the prison’s armed guards. This manual also mentions the need to have a jamadar or sweeper because as you can imagine from the description above, the remains of a hanging can be extremely messy. This is why I think we have to dress the prisoner in black so that when his bowels and bladder empty, it is not too visible. It is also the reason why I will always associate death with the stench of a toilet. 

Today hangings are always indoors (behind enclosures within the jails) but in the past there was a provision to make examples of the prisoners, and thus other prisoners were made to watch the execution. This was done to serve as a deterrent. Suppose the execution was of someone who was in prison for a lesser crime but was later sentenced to death because they killed another inmate. In such a case, the superintendent could decide to allow other prisoners to watch the execution—to send a message to them. 

However, in most cases today, prisoners are not allowed to witness the hanging because it can lead to rioting amongst them. But then how do you make an example of hanging without doing ISIS-style public executions and then circulating pictures of it? The rules state that all the prison authorities need to do is to inform the district magistrate of the area where the sentenced person is from. 

Using the old fashioned method of beating drums, they would inform the entire village or town that the person having committed murder was being hanged in so and so jail and ‘let all evil minded persons take note, (Govt Resolution, Judicial Department number 6049, dated September 7, 1898). Fortunately, innovations in mass media and being in a big, urban city like Delhi, ensured that we never had to publicize our executions in such a manner.

Hanging someone is a complicated business practically as well. We did what was in our control to ensure that the hanging went as smoothly as possible for everyone involved – especially the prisoner. Along with the hangmen, we practised the routine a number of times with bags of sand weighing 1.5 times the weight of the prisoner. While we did not need to buy a new rope for every hanging, we did have to carefully use wax or butter to smoothen it. 

Some hangmen had their own unique methods of preparing the rope, such as carefully treating it with mashed bananas. The rope would then be securely locked away by the deputy superintendent of the jail until the date of the hanging. The length of the rope is just enough to allow the drop of either 1.8 or 2.4 meters, depending on the weight of the person to be hanged. So, say if the prisoner weighed under 45 kilos, then the longest drop of 2.4 metres was required, but if he was heavier, then it was a much shorter drop of 6 feet or 1.8 metres for anyone above 90 kilos.

This was not the only calculation we had to do. We had to take the height of the prisoner from the floor to his jaw immediately below his left ear, the height of the beam to which the rope is fixed and the neck measurements—these details are noted diligently to make arrangements for the hangman. The length of rope is the length of the drop, plus the distance from the angle of the prisoner’s jaw, to the ring. 

That was all fine in theory but in practice, the hangman would pride himself on calculating everything by guesswork. He would just need to look at the sentenced man to decipher how many bags of sand were needed to test the ropes. Finally, one last calculation was done for the hanging, that of measuring the neck. The heavier the person, the longer their neck would elongate during the process. This would give an indication of whether the person would actually die of dislocation of the cervical vertebrate, which is the quickest and most painless way to die.