In the two weeks since India’s first hang­ing in 13 years, two chil­dren have died and a third young boy was near­ly killed as a result of imi­tat­ing the high­ly pub­li­cized exe­cu­tion. A 14-year-old boy died after he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the oth­er end on a ceil­ing fan in his home to re-enact the exe­cu­tion. The boy’s father said that his son was very curi­ous about the nation’s first exe­cu­tion and had close­ly fol­lowed the days lead­ing up to it by watch­ing news accounts. The sec­ond child to die, a 12-year-old girl from West Bengal, acci­den­tal­ly killed her­self when she tried to demon­strate for her younger broth­er how the exe­cu­tion was con­duct­ed. A third 10-year-old West Bengal vic­tim near­ly died as he and his friends act­ed out the exe­cu­tion, tak­ing roles as the defen­dant, the hang­man, a doc­tor, and the prison war­den. (Reuters, August 25, 2004) See International Death Penalty and Deterrence.

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