KOLKATA, Aug 14: India executed a criminal for the first time in 13 years on Saturday, a 41-year-old man convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl in Kolkata.

Despite appeals by his family and human rights groups, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was brought out of his cell at dawn and hanged.

He was convicted for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh in 1990.

"We have completed the execution of capital punishment of Dhananjoy," inspector general of prisons Joydev Chakraborty told reporters outside the prison.

He said Chatterjee was calm as he was led to the gallows. He had asked for Hindu religious songs to be played during the night.

A group of human rights activists kept a candle-light vigil through the night near the prison, opposing the execution. "Stop this barbaric practice," read a placard.

Activists said that Chatterjee, whose appeal for clemency was turned down by the country's president, had already lived on death row for more than a decade.

They also said the death penalty was too harsh in India's imperfect judicial system, where many with resources have escaped conviction. But state authorities said carrying out the death sentence would serve as a deterrent against heinous crimes.

"It is an exemplary punishment, it will prevent such crimes in the future," Law Minister Nishith Adhikary of the communist ruled state said.

Chatterjee's parents and brother, who fought a lengthy legal battle to save him, stayed home in their village in Bankura district, 200kms west of Kolkata. His body was taken by a Hindu charity organization and cremated, an official said.

Indian courts rarely award the death penalty and only about 40 people have been executed in the past 30 years.

Officials said there were more than a dozen convicts on death row across the country. But their sentences have not been carried out as pleas for clemency are pending.-Reuters