Tamkin Fayaz/Rampur

Shabnam’s crime of passion committed in 2008 has acquired dramatic proportions. During the trial, she confessed to having killed seven of her family members with the help of her paramour. Thirteen years later, she is now slated to become the first woman to be hanged in Independent India.

After her petition for mercy was rejected by President Ram Nath Kovid and earlier by Uttar Pradesh Governor, Shabnam lodged in Rampur jail in Uttar Pradesh, awaits a death warrant. The jail administration has already started making preparations for her hanging.

Shabnam, a resident of Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, was convicted along with her lover Salim of murdering her family in 2008. She had fed sedatives to them and later strangled each one. The family was against her relationship with Salim.

Salim is lodged in Agra prison. Speaking to Awaz-the Voice, jailor Rakesh Kumar Verma, said she had been a normal and creative inmate, often made rangolis and other crafts in the jail premises. She is lodged in barrack no 14 and is one of the 48 inmates in the Rampur jail.”

The prison administration has started preparations for the hanging. Amroha administration is yet to obtain her death warrant. As soon as it’ through Shabnam will be transferred to Mathura district jail.

Mathura Jail is the only prison in the country that has a female execution room, Verma said.

Shabnam's uncle Sattar Ali said she should be hanged as she had brutally murdered seven members of her own family. Though Advocate Arshad Ansari said there are instances when women convicts sentenced to death were given life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, hangman Pawan Jallad of Meerut, who had executed the convicts in Nirbhaya's gangrape-murder case, has visited Mathura jail and suggested some modifications. "I will do the trial, check the rope, check the board to see if all is set," he said.

Shabnam and Salim were found guilty of killing her parents, two brothers and their wives, and 10-month-old nephew in Bawankhedi village of Amroha on April 14, 2008.

Shabnam, a double MA (in English and Geography) who taught at the village primary school, initially pretended that her house was attacked by unidentified assailants. However, under interrogation, she confessed that she had committed the crime in association with Salim. The duo first made her family members drink milk laced with sedatives and after they fell unconscious, she hcked them with an axe that was later recovered from a pond. 

Salim, a Class six dropout, worked at a band saw unit close to Shabnam's house. The case was heard in Amroha court for over two years. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the Allahabad High Court judgment that had awarded the death penalty to them.

It turns out that Shabnam and salim had got married in the jail and have a son.

After the verdict, the child was adopted by a samaritan