Afzal's hanging rope gets Bihar prisoners emotional

A Bihar jail has already provided the rope to hang Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death for the 2001 terror attack on parliament, but the inmates of the jail who made the rope have mixed feelings.

Some prisoners of the Buxar Central Jail, 100 km from here, were happy about their little contribution towards hanging Afzal - if he is hanged - while a few were upset that their work would bring death to someone, said a senior jail official.

The jail has a history of providing the special manila ropes spun in the jail premises to hang convicts.

Superintendent of Buxar Jail I.H Ansari said officials from Tihar Jail in New Delhi had purchased the hanging rope from them Saturday.

"The hanging rope weighed 3.75 kg and is 60-feet-long. They bought it for Rs.1,820 - at the rate of Rs.180 per kg," he said.

Ansari said the demand for the hanging rope had decreased over the years as the number of hanging cases had reduced.

The jail inmates were engaged in a debate - for and against hanging - and most of them freely expressed their views over the issue, said another jail official.

Afzal, a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist, has been sentenced to hang Oct 20 at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi. But there have been protests in Jammu and Kashmir against his hanging and he can be granted clemency by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

When Dhananjay Chatterjee, accused of raping and killing a 14-year-old, was hanged at the Alipore jail in Kolkata in 2004, the rope was supplied by Buxar Jail.

There are varieties of ropes made by Buxar inmates - tent rope, handcuff rope and hanging rope. The count of the yarn indicates its finesse.

A lot of hard work goes into the making of the Manila rope. First the yarn is spun into a thick thread from J-34 variety of cotton. Then the thread is smoothened by soft wax.

According to the jail records, the rope was supplied to the Andhra Pradesh government in 2003. A consignment was also sent in 1995 to the Bhagalpur Central Jail where a dozen convicts sentenced to death are lodged.

(IANS)

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