Blowing From Guns: Statistics

[jf42]

Just having looked through these notes and read reference to a high caste Hindu's fear of being defiled by the hangman's touch, were they not concerned about the touch of those who tied the condemned to the guns?

I find it hard to believe there was any humane purpose in this ghastly means of execution, which was surely intended to quell any inclination to mutiny among troops who witnessed it, Hindu or Muslim- Pour encourager les autres. After the Mutiny, grim retribution obviously played its part. Chilling to read that the physical effects were similar to those on a suicide bomber.

[L. Braden]

Ironically, this method of execution was the most humane, because all accounts confirm that death was instantaneous -- unlike the gallows and firing squad, in which death was not always instantaneous, as numerous accounts indicate.