Dhananjoy Chatterjee went to his death quietly. After listening to Hindu devotional songs, the convicted child killer took a bath and put on a white tunic and trousers. Then in the early hours of August 14, his 41st birthday, he prayed before a photograph of his father.
As his hands were tied ready for his hanging by an 84-year-old executioner at a Calcutta jail, he uttered his last words: 'I am innocent. May God bless you.'
'He never shouted or hesitated when he was brought to the gallows. I was moved by the way he came forward and surrendered in front of me,' said Nata Mullick, who was brought out of retirement to execute Chatterjee for a reward of US$435 and a prison job for his grandson. Mr Mullick's father is said to have hanged more than 500 people, mostly Bengali revolutionaries fighting British colonial rule.
Chatterjee, a former security guard and lift operator sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Hetal Parekh, in 1990, was hanging lifeless from the gallows shortly after 4.30am. He had spent the past 13 years in solitary confinement protesting his innocence and had exhausted all routes for legal appeal up to the Supreme Court.
Two appeals for clemency had been rejected by Indian presidents, the second decision handed down by Abdul Kalam 10 days before the execution. Despite Chatterjee's conviction being based on circumstantial evidence - the victim's watch found in his village, witnesses testifying they saw him go to Hetal's apartment on the day she was killed - Hetal's former school friends spoke of the justice they felt had been done. 'The hanging was the best thing that could have happened to such a man. Losing Hetal was a horrifying experience,' said one.
A conclusion for some, but Chatterjee's failure to avoid the hangman's noose has breathed fresh life into a capital punishment debate after years of it being almost certified dead.