Popular individual literally ends without compassion (9)

I believe the answer is:

inhumanly

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'without compassion' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.

'popular individual literally ends' is the wordplay.
'popular' becomes 'in' (something that's 'in' is fashionable).
'individual' becomes 'human' (synonyms).
'ends' means to remove the middle letters.
'literally' with its centre taken out is 'ly'.
'in'+'human'+'ly'='INHUMANLY'

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I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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