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May 17, 2010

MEMO FROM NEW DELHI
Volunteers to hang killer

Queue for hangman job reflects Indians' outrage against terror attacks

By P. Jayaram, India Correspondent



Ajmal Kasab has been sentenced to death, but the legal process could take years. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

INDIA'S last official hangman may have retired, but there certainly has been no shortage of volunteers queueing up to see to the execution of the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Some had been affected personally by the attacks that had killed 166 people in the city. Call centre employee Sanjay Kathar, 25, for instance, lost his job after being injured by a hand grenade hurled by the terrorists at a Jewish centre.

Fisherman Santhosh Dattaram Veer, 35, lost his friend Harish Goyal in the attacks. Others have volunteered out of principle. There is Muslim cleric Maulana Khaliur Rehman, who wants to see Ajmal Kasab, who was sentenced to the gallows for his role in the terror attacks, hanged without delay.

Read the full story in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.
pjay@sph.com.sg