Ajmal Kasab’s execution marks an end to India’s widely hailed unofficial moratorium on capital punishment since 2004, when prime minister Manmohan Singh’s government took charge. It signifies a sad regression in India’s near-decade move away from the death penalty. Indian law allows for the death penalty, and death sentences are handed down by courts with some frequency. However, a 1980 Supreme Court ruling established the doctrine that the death penalty should only be used “in the rarest of the rare” cases. A single execution was carried out in 2004 after a lengthy unofficial moratorium earlier.