The kittee was an instrument of torture in regular use in India. It bore some resemblance to the thumbscrew so popular at one time in England and Scotland. Constructed of wood and resembling somewhat of a household lemon-squeezer, various sensitive parts of the body - such as the hands, feet, ears, nose, the breasts of women and the exterior genitals of men - were squeezed between the two plates until the victim could stand the terrible agony no longer or, as often happened, he fainted under the strain. It often caused permanent disablement. A variation of the kittee consisted of two boards, between which the hands or feet of the prisoner were compressed, sometimes by the executioner standing upon the upper board and sometimes by heaping heavy weights upon it and leaving the victim suffering for hours at a stretch.

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