HORRIBLE DEATH SCENE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

HORRIBLE DEATH SCENE.

BARBAROUS EXECUTION IN STREETS OF HYDERABAD.

Tin: execution at Hyderabad of a Pathan who had shot his brother-in-law is described by the Civil and .Military Gazette. The decision as to whether the murderer should be executed or imprisoned for life was, as is usual, left to the arbitrament, of the murdered man's relatives, and his wife, the sister of the murderer, voted for death. On the day for the execution there appeared in the streets a band of sweepers armed with leafy twigs, followed by .1 squad of the city Arab police with fixed bayonets. Then came the criminal dressed in new white garments, with a new halter around his neck and new ropes attached to his arms. The ends of these ropes were held by policemen. The ordinary thing is for the condemned man to walk* but in this case he was so overcome that lie had to be conveyed in a jutka. On arriving at the fatal spot the murderer was made to alight and kneel down, while the policemen handed over charge of the fords to the executioner's attendants, one of whom, seizing the end of the halter, stood in front of the felon, while others held the cords pinioning ips arms behind. The executioner, brandishing a broad, heavy sword, keen as a razor, in a suggestive fashion, and prancing up towards his victim, asked three times in a loud voice: "Who authorises the execution?" The chief of the city police on duty thrice replied: "The Amin." Then an attendant armed with a long needle pricked the condemned man in the back, causing him to start forward. At the same instant those holding the cords laid themselves back in opposite directions as in a fug-of-war contest, with the result that the wretch's neck was stretched; and, following the reply of the chief of the police, the executioner's blade descended fair and. true, on the neck, severing the head completely.