Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer

by Sunil Gupta

The day before an execution prisoner goes through a harrowing experience of being weighed, measured for length of drop to assure breaking of the neck, the size of the neck, body measurements etc. When the trap springs he dangles at the end of rope. There are times when the neck has not been broken and the prisoner strangles to death. His eyes pop almost out of his head, his tongue swells and protrudes from his mouth, his neck may be broken and the rope many times takes large portion of skins and flesh from the side of the face that the noose is on. He urinates, he defecates and droppings fall to the floor while witnesses look on and at almost all executions one or more faint or have to be helped out of the witness room. The prisoner remains dangling from the end of the rope from 8 to 14 minutes before the Doctor, who has climbed up a small ladder and listen to his heartbeat with a stethoscope, pronounces him dead. A prison guard stands at the feet of the hanged person and holds the body steady, because during the first few minutes there is usually considerable struggling in an effort to breathe. – Warden Duffy of San Quention Prison Law Commission of India, 187th Report