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Parents of death row convict threaten family suicide in India
The elderly parents of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, due to be hanged in Kolkata for raping and killing a teenage girl, on Monday threatened to commit suicide along with other family members if the death sentence was not revoked.
The elderly parents of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, due to be hanged in Kolkata for raping and killing a teenage girl, on Monday threatened to commit suicide along with other family members if the death sentence was not revoked.
Bangshidhar and Purnima Chatterjee and about 30 relatives demonstrated in front of governor Viren J. Shah's house in Kolkata on Monday, submitting a memorandum to revoke the death sentence of their son, Dhananjoy.
They were carrying banners that read: "Let our son live. Do not hang him."
Dhananjoy, an apartment guard and elevator operator who was convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old tenant as she returned from school in 1990, is due to be hanged in Kolkata on Friday.
He has been in prison for 13 years as the case progressed.
"We do not want to live if our son is hanged," the 70-year-old mother said.
"Our son is not with us. He is in jail, but we know he is alive. All seven members of our family will end our lives if he is hanged," she said, referring to themselves, Dhananjoy's two brothers, his wife and two other relatives.
Dhananjoy Chatterjee's relatives came to the city by a chartered bus from Chatna village in district Bankura, about 200 kilometres (124 miles) west of Kolkata.
"We will come back to the city and end our lives in the heart of the city if our son is hanged," the mother said before the crowd dispersed.
Bangshidhar Chatterjee, 76, had previously appealed for the state to wait until he and his wife had died before executing their son.
Capital punishment is increasingly out of favour in India, whose Supreme Court authorises executions only in the "rarest of rare cases". Executions are regularly delayed or commuted at the last minute by the country's president.
Although the government keeps no records on the death penalty, the last known executions were in January 1989 with the hangings of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, the bodyguards of late prime minister Indira Gandhi who were convicted of assassinating her.
