President to decide on execution

President Kalam will study the views of the interior ministry

India's Supreme Court has said President APJ Kalam will decide the fate of a convicted rapist and murderer facing execution in Calcutta.

Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard, was to be hanged in the eastern city on Friday for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 1990.

Human rights groups had protested against the execution.

In 1983, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that executions should be carried out in only the "rarest" cases.

Parents' vow

A spokesman for President Kalam told the BBC that he would make a decision after studying the views of India's interior ministry on the matter.

It is a brutal act that should be stopped Sujato Bhadro, human rights activist

"It will take some time. It will depend on how soon the president gets the views of the interior ministry," he said.

Human rights groups, along with leading writers and film-makers in Calcutta, staged demonstrations to mobilise public opinion against the execution.

"Hanging has never deterred criminals or stopped crime," human rights activist Sujato Bhadro told the BBC.

"It is a brutal act that should be stopped."

Kiriti Roy, another activist who protested against the hanging, said the death penalty had "gone out of fashion and that should be the case in India".

The convict's parents - father Bangshidhar, 76, and mother Purnima, 70 - had threatened to commit suicide if their son was executed.

They asked that if any execution were carried out it should be after they had died.

The death penalty is rarely carried out, usually only in particularly gruesome or politically sensitive cases.

The assassins of India's independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi, and former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, were among those executed in the past 50 years.