At least 720 executions in India since 1947

New Delhi: India has carried out at least 720 executions since Independence, nearly half of them in Uttar Pradesh, according to data collated under a project of the National Law University here. The actual number could be much higher, a project official said, as there are no proper records maintained by the government on executions.

Before Friday morning's hanging of four Nirbhaya case convicts in Delhi's Tihar Jail, Yakub Menon was the last person to be sent to the gallows in July, 2015.

According to the Project 39A data, 354 executions were carried out in Uttar Pradesh since Independence, followed by 90 in Haryana, 73 in Madhya Pradesh, 57 in Maharashtra, 36 in Karnataka, 30 in West Bengal, 27 in Andhra Pradesh, 24 in Delhi, and 10 in Punjab. Eight deaths by execution were recorded in Rajasthan, five each in Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir, and one in Goa, it added.

Executive Director of Project 39A Anup Surendranath said the figures gathered by them are based on records shared by states under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, while the actual number could be much higher. "Collecting data on executions is difficult as there are no proper records maintained by the government. Our data is based on information procured through RTIs and the actual number could be in thousands but we do not have any record for that," he said.

He said the evidence of this mismatch between the records that governments have and the actual numbers lies in a 1967 Law Commission of India report on the death penalty.

"That report recorded we had executed nearly 1,500 people by then but as you can see now, governments seem to have a record of only about 720 executions. It shows how callous we can be with the state taking human life," he added.