Rape-murder convict to be hanged in Ambala prison on Apr 15

Dharampal, a rape convict who later murdered the victim and four members of her family while out on parole in 1993, will he hanged in Ambala prison on April 15, Haryana Director General of Police, Prisons, Sharad Kumar said on Saturday.

"He (Dharampal) will be hanged in Ambala jail on April 15. All the necessary arrangements needed to carry out the execution are in place," said Kumar.

The President had recently rejected the convict's mercy petition, which had been pending for 14 years.

The DGP said the hanging will be carried out in Ambala jail, where the last execution had taken place in 1989.

Asked if the hangman was available, he said, "We have all the arrangements in place".

The convict, who was earlier lodged in a jail in Rohtak, was shifted to Ambala prison on Friday.

While Haryana has 19 jails, only the ones in Ambala and Hisar have the requisite facilities for hanging.

In 1991, Dharampal was sentenced to a 10-year jail term for raping a girl in Sonepat.

After his release on parole in 1993, Dharampal, along with his brother Nirmal, murdered the girl, her father Tale Ram, mother Krishna and brothers Teenu and Praveen, when they were sleeping at their house.

Dharmapal and Nirmal were sentenced to death by a Sessions Court on May 5, 1997. The sentence was upheld by the Punjab and Haryana high court on September 29, 1998.

The Supreme Court converted Nirmal's death penalty to life imprisonment but Dharampal's death sentence was retained.

His mercy petition was rejected by the Union home ministry in 2000. Later, Dharampal filed a mercy plea to the President in 2005, which was rejected after eight years.