The death penalty around the world

Nearly three-quarters of world's 195 states have either abolished the punishment or not carried it out over the past decade, according to rights group Amnesty International.

China remains the top executioner, followed by Iran.

By the end of 2018, 106 countries had completely abolished the death penalty for all crimes, according to Amnesty.

Close to half of them were in Europe and Central Asia.

Another 36 countries retained the death penalty in law but had not carried out executions for at least 10 years.

Burkina Faso abolished the death penalty in its penal code in June 2018. In February The Gambia declared a moratorium on executions as did Malaysia in July.

Guinea and Mongolia abolished capital punishment for all crimes in 2017.

At least 690 executions were known to have taken place globally in 2018, a decrease of 31 per cent compared to 2017, Amnesty says.

The figure, the lowest it had recorded in the past decade, did not, however, include the "thousands" of executions believed to have been carried out in China, which keeps such data secret.

Last year's known executions were in 20 countries, with at least 253 recorded in Iran alone.

While this was the most in any another country, it was half the number of 2017 following amendments to Iran's narcotics law, Amnesty's report says.

Iran nonetheless accounted for more than one-third of the executions recorded in 2018.

The following top executors were Saudi Arabia (149), Vietnam (85), Iraq (52) and Egypt (43).

Botswana, Sudan, Taiwan and Thailand all resumed executions, but only accounted for six of the global total.

Among the countries that increased their yearly executions were Belarus (4), Japan (15), Singapore (13) and South Sudan (7).

For the 10th consecutive year, the United States was the only country on the American continent to execute prisoners, putting to death 25 -- two more than in 2017.

Amnesty International recorded at least 2,531 death sentences imposed in 54 countries in 2018, a slight decrease from the previous year.

The most were in Egypt (at least 717) and Iraq (at least 271).

Indian courts imposed 50 per cent more death sentences than in the previous year: 162 up from 108, it says.

They included 45 for murder and 58 for murder involving sexual offences.

Amended laws introduced the death penalty as a discretionary punishment for the rape of girls younger than 12 years of age.

Almost 400 people are on death row in India.

Its last execution was in 2015 when Yakub Memon, convicted for the 1993 Mumbai bomb attacks that killed 257 people, was hanged in jail.

India has carried out at least 720 executions since Independence, nearly half of them in Uttar Pradesh, according to data collated under a project of the National Law University.

The actual number could be much higher, a project official said, as there are no proper records maintained by the government on executions.

Before Friday morning's hanging of four Nirbhaya case convicts in Delhi's Tihar Jail, Yakub Menon was the last person to be sent to the gallows in July, 2015.