A Hangman for Kerala

There are about 16 convicts in various jails of Kerala awaiting execution.  Among other reasons one

factor for not taking place their final punishment is lack of a hangman. The hangman’s job is not a permanent post in the Government as there is no need for a permanent post since executions take place once in a while. The remuneration for that gruesome job, until recently, was only five hundred rupees. Obviously no one came forward to do the work. In the circumstance the Government of Kerala  enhanced the remuneration recently to 2 Lakh Rupees, a 400 percent increase and the Newspaper Mathrubhumi published the News. The result of the News and such imaginative enhancement was very encouraging, now scores of young men are coming forward to do the work and one young man is even ready to hang the entire lot of 16 convicts at one go and to use the money to settle many pending things at home. There is no remorse, sympathy or feeling of guilt in killing  persons who have done no wrong to him.

 Kerala, is a place of persons of sophisticated desires with primitive resources. A climber of coconut trees can earn any sum around a thousand rupees or more daily. But the State has acute scarcity for such workers and people from other states like Bihar, Bengal or Odisha are doing the work. The young men are interested only in big money and in white collar jobs. It is not simply a question of unemployment amongst the educated youth.

The glitz and glamour of life is perhaps urging young men to make money as quickly as possible   making them  do any heinous crime if there is good money in it. The obscene urgency and desire for the money in an executioner’s work proves it, though it is a state sponsored and legitimate work. Then one would wonder if a private institution or individual offered enough money would not they be ready to do any job including one of a criminal.  If even the convicted persons themselves offered four Lakh rupees for freedom (against the 2 Lakh for the hangman’s work) would not they be ready to look the other way for them to escape.

  There are persons who make a living by doing the work of killing poor animals for food or persons who are willing to take up contract work for bulk killing of stray dogs.  Why they take up such horrendous jobs for living is best known to them alone.  The young men who hastily applied for the post of lyncher must be belonging to such genre of people who live by killing.



Image : Google