He retired after carrying out India's first execution in nearly a decade, but Calcutta's veteran hangman is still in the business. He is selling strands of his final noose -- rumored to have magical powers -- and finding both a ready market and revulsion.
Nata Mallick, 83, ended his career on August 14 when he hanged Dhananjoy Chatterjee, an apartment guard convicted in the rape and murder of a teenaged girl.
PHOTO: AFP
He has since cashed in on a superstition that a hangman's noose possesses occult powers that can uplift the sick and poor. For a price, Mallick sells lockets made from snippets of the noose that broke Chatterjee's neck.
"He is pure evil," Sujato Bhadro, secretary of the anti-death penalty Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights, said of the hangman.
"This sinful man has no right to do this in Calcutta where saints like Mother Teresa worked for hundreds who had given up hope to live," Bhadro said, referring to the Albanian-born nun who was beatified last year.
Mallick, who has hanged 25 people, shrugs off the criticism at his new-found trade.
"It is a proven fact that a used noose has magic power and it works miracles for those having a spate of bad luck, flopped business and heavy debt," the retired executioner told reporters. He says he accepts whatever money is offered him for a noose-locket. And he has plenty to sell.
Mallick has chopped up Chatterjee's noose into miniscule pieces, ensuring there are plenty to sell. For those who don't want to splurge on the freshly used noose, old ropes are also available, Mallick said.
"I collected all the nooses that were lying in the jail when I went there to execute Dhananjoy Chatterjee," Mallick said.
He said he would sell lockets from Chatterjee's noose for around 2,000 rupees (US$43). Lockets from the old ropes, which, as for the Indian prison manual, are each six meters long were 500 rupees (US$11). Mallick had a salary of 5,000 rupees (US$110) per execution, although his fee was doubled for his finale this month.
Among the buyers was Joyprakash Mitra, an unemployed 30-year-old whose grandfather advised him to carry a noose-locket.
"I tried my luck with many things. Now I want to try the magic power of the noose," said Mitra, who declined to say how much he paid.
The hangman claims that hundreds of buyers had come to him. While the number could not be verified, Babu Roy, who owns a tea stall on the road to Mallick's ramshackle house, said the crowds had been significant.
"My daily sales have doubled as people are stopping by my shop while going to meet Mallick," Roy said.
"This rope locket has become a new craze," he said. "They are becoming costlier by the day."
Others are less amused. Ajoy Banerjee of Calcutta's revered Kalighat temple called the trade "sordid."
"His aim is just to earn money," said Banerjee, the secretary of the temple management board, who said the Hindu clergy at Kalighat planned a campaign against the lockets. "We are worried that scores of unwed women and jobless youths are thronging the hangman's home for rope lockets," Banerjee said.
Mallick's outspoken passion for his job helped fuel criticism in the run-up to his last execution. A jail official said Mallick fell ill at the gallows and was carried away on a stretcher after the hanging.
The official claimed that Mallick may have had too many drinks.
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
RSS