17 October 2004	Sunday	02 Ramazan 1425

KOLKATA, Oct 16: The state government of West Bengal has banned stage and film portrayals of the first hanging of a man in India in over a decade after at least six children died re-enacting the execution.

"The government won't allow anyone to stage plays or make a film on the life and death of Dhananjoy Chatterjee," Amit Kirn Deb, home secretary of the eastern Indian state, told reporters on Saturday.

Since Chatterjee's execution in August for the rape and murder of a teenage schoolgirl, at least six children have died while trying to recreate the execution.

Among them was a 13-year-old Kolkata who died trying to show her brother how the hanging had been done. A 12-year-old boy in West Bengal's Bankora district hanged himself while playing with a noose.

Chatterjee's hanging generated huge media coverage as Indian courts rarely authorize executions. It also resulted in several plays about the execution by writers opposed to the death penalty.

The government ban came before the hugely popular annual Durga Puja festival next week when it is common for cultural groups to stage plays based on controversial social events.

Chatterjee's lawyers had argued that his conviction for the 1990 killing of 16-year-old Hetal Parekh was based on circumstantial evidence and police never carried out crucial DNA evidence testing.-AFP