NEW DELHI: Fewer countries are carrying out executions than a decade ago, but India along with nations like Gambia, Pakistan and Japan bucked the trend to resume handing out death penalties. An Amnesty International report says that 21 countries executed convicts last year as compared to 28 in 2003.

But there is greater concern that Indian courts had meted out at least 78 death sentences with more than 400 estimated to be on death row at the end of this year. The new death sentences given by India (78) are second only to Pakistan (242) in the Asia-Pacific region. At least 679 new death sentences are known to have been imposed in 19 countries in the region last year.

According to the report, at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide, two more than in 2011. However, these figures do not take into account executions in China.

"The 2012 figures on the use of death penalty confirm that the overall trend globally is towards abolition; only one in 10 countries worldwide carried out death sentences. However, 2012 also saw setbacks; the resumption of executions especially in Gambia, India, Japan and Pakistan as well as the alarming rise in reported executions in Iraq as compared to 2011 are of grave concern," the report said.

At least 1,722 people were sentenced to death in 58 countries last year. This is a decrease from 2011, when at least 1,923 people were known to have been sentenced in 63 countries worldwide, and a reduction for the second year running. In 2010, 2,024 death sentences were ordered in 67 countries.

India flouted the global trend, according to the report, by carrying out its first execution since 2004 in hanging 2008 Mumbai terror attack convict Ajmal Kasab .

The international organization also expressed concern over the procedure adopted in Kasab’s case. The report pointed out that Kasab case was taken out of turn and was only announced in public after the execution was carried out. Amnesty International has written to PM Manmohan Singh seeking abolition of death penalty.