‘Don’t worry, I will walk to the gallows’

Last night, on his request, jail officials gave him three postcards and he even tried to scribble something. But this morning, he returned them to the wardens with barely a few words written on them. ‘‘I couldn’t write anything, take these back,’’ he said.

Then, when jail officials asked him how he wished to spend the final hours, Dhananjoy asked for bhajans by Anup Jalota and Manna Dey. Soon, strains of devotional songs, played on a music system outside his cell, filled the jail.

When the jail’s welfare officer Shikha Roy met him, Dhananjoy is said to have remarked that he had not seen his mother and sisters for so long and now would never see them again. In the evening, senior officials took turns to attend on him.

Two hours before the execution, Dhananjoy will be woken up and taken for a bath before the death warrant is read out. The jail superintendent will ‘‘identify’’ him and hand him over to the hangman. Before being escorted to the gallows by four wardens, Dhananjoy will be allowed to read from religious scriptures, including the Gita.

On the other side, for hangman Nata Mullick, his 15 minutes of fame inched towards the climax. He and his grandson were put up in a cell in the jail premises as a precautionary measure. There, he was supplied with cigarettes and food of his choice to ‘‘keep him in good humour’’.

Right through the day, after performing his ‘‘puja,’’ he performed for TV cameras and then, in between, slipped away to take a look at Dhananjoy in his cell.

Outside the jail, the hanging generated an unusual degree of interest, with curious onlookers flocking to its premises. A couple of them even demanded that they be given a chance to witness the hanging.

At Writers’ Buildings, Jail Minister Biswanath Chowdhury confirmed that by 3.30 pm, the department had received at least 60 applications—many from ‘‘eminent citizens’’—who wanted to witness the hanging. ‘‘We don’t know how to deal with so many of them,’’ he said.