It was a very dark night in Kuludihi village of West Bengal. When Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who grew up in this village, was executed in Kolkata's Alipore jail on Saturday 0430 IST, there was deathly silence in the village.

Also Read Dhananjoy Chatterjee hanged Complete Coverage

Cordoned off by the police, nobody was allowed to enter or leave the village in the night.

Dhananjoy's father, Bangshidhar, mother Belarani and wife Poornima were visited by their neighbours to comfort them, the police said.

The family had stood behind Dhananjoy, the rapist-killer of schoolgirl Hetal Parekh in 1990, all through his 14-year-long legal battle.

Dhananjoy, a security guard at Anand Apartments at Bhowanipore, had fled to his village after raping and murdering Hetal.

After he was arrested, the family fought back, selling the land they possessed to meet the legal expenses.                                                

It was Purnima's petition in the Supreme Court after a mercy plea was made to the President in 1994 that temporarily saved Dhananjoy from the gallows on February 24 that year.

Villagers of Kuludihi also stood by the Chatterjees in their hour of distress. Bus loads of them had arrived in Kolkata to sit on a hunger strike before the earlier scheduled date of hanging this year.

Dhananjoy, who had married Purnima by falsely claiming that he was employed with the Border Security Force, had advised her to remarry. She seemed is no mood to tie the knot again when she last spoke to journalists.