Summary:
The Mathura district jail has started preparations to hang a woman for the first time in independent India. Shabnam Ali, 38, was convicted of killing seven members of her family — her mother, father, two brothers, sister-in-law, cousin and 10-month-old nephew — by serving them milk laced with sedatives and then slitting their throats.
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The Mathura district jail has started preparations to hang a woman for the first time in independent India. Shabnam Ali, 38, was convicted of killing seven members of her family — her mother, father, two brothers, sister-in-law, cousin and 10-month-old nephew — by serving them milk laced with sedatives and then slitting their throats.
Shabnam, 25 then with a double MA, wanted to marry Saleem, a class VI dropout, but her family did not want her to.
Both were sentenced to death in 2010 by the session’s court in Amroha in UP, where they are from.
Over the next 11 years, Shabnam went to the Allahabad high court, the Supreme Court, the President and then the Supreme Court (SC) again.
In January last year, her review petition was dismissed by the SC.
However, she has not exhausted all judicial remedies.
Though her lawyer informed that they have not been informed about a death warrant being issued in the one year since, at the Mathura district jail, the only one in the country where women can be hanged, preparations are afoot.
“We have not received any death warrant but have started preparing … Last year in February, the executioner, Pawan Jallad, had inspected the hanging house.
"He said that there was a problem with the structure of the gallows.
We are fixing that now.