A job opportunity may have opened up in a rural Indian town for someone willing to do anything for money – as an executioner.
Due to a shortage of staff prepared to carry out executions, officials from Jorhat prison, located 190 miles east of Gauhati, are actively seeking a qualified candidate for this ancient role.
It seems that the position is specifically for one execution – that of Mahendra Nath Das, who received a death sentence for committing a horrific beheading in a crowded market.
In India, death sentences are rarely handed out, but the court determined that Das’ heinous act warranted such a punishment after he was seen running through the street with the severed head of Hara Kunt, a competitor in the local transporters’ union.
In the last 15 years, only two executions have taken place in the country, and the most seasoned executioner in India, Nata Mullick, passed away in 2009, creating a vacancy in the position.
Notably, Mullick, who was 84 at the time, had to come out of retirement in 2004 to carry out the last death penalty execution.
Efforts to reach out to neighboring jails in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have yielded no responses.
Should authorities be unable to secure an executioner, it could endanger the sentences not only for Das but also for two other death row inmates.
Currently awaiting execution in India are Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the last surviving shooter from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, and Afzal Guru, who was found guilty of the 2001 attack on parliament that resulted in 14 fatalities.
Brojen Das, the jailor at Jorhat prison, confirmed the job opening, stating: ‘We have started the process of putting up the gallows.’
