2004-08-17
Hang Foreign Terrorists, Not Indians
If the State is empowered to kill citizens, then it will kill citizens to empower itself.
There are thousands of Afghans fighters lodged in Indian prisons in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). When journalists interview them, they claim that they came to J&K because they were told that Islam was in danger there. It is a standard reply that they were taught during training. Foreign terrorists who fight in J&K are under contract like mercenaries. Their families get paid huge sums of money. They get big bonuses when they score huge hits. Jehadi organizations in Pakistan and Pak-Occupied Kashmir (POK) solicit donations from sympathetic Muslims in Pakistan and abroad. It is a general misapprehension that the money goes to buy arms. Making an AK-47 is like making a folding chair. It doesn’t cost much. Because these men were captured during anti-terrorist operations by security forces, they have no case against them. They will be held indefinitely in Indian prisons at taxpayers’ expense. They will be fed, clothed, warmed, and housed using our money. None of them will ever be hanged.
Compare this with the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee. When the condemned man sent a mercy petition to the President, several people were worried that he might be given a pardon. Women’s organisations were the most vocal in their protests. They don’t realise that women also commit murders and that such women might be hanged. (Though, almost always, death sentences for women get commuted to life sentences.) Most dowry deaths are caused by women. Women sometimes kill their husbands and sometimes even their children.
With most crimes, the punishment is meant to deter the culprit from committing it again. With capital punishment, however, the deterence is meant solely for others. In a society, murders will happen no matter what punishment it entails. In any group of 1000 people, there will be x number of murders, y number of divorces, and z number of robberies. It is simply a function of statistics. Besides that, letting the state murder someone is against the concept of right to life, which our constitution guarantees for every citizen.
Yet, see how foreign terrorists are faring in India. These mass murders may still go back to their countries under some goodwill arrangement. In the Purulia arms drop case, the Latvian crew was initially charged with waging war against India, which is punishable by death. The charge was then watered down to violation of air space. When the Russian President Putin was pressured by the Church, he made the Indian government release the culprits. Following this, British government asked for the release of the arms dealer Peter Bleach, who was then released.
Interestingly, Peter Bleach had informed British intelligence about the clandestine arms airdrop. The British passed on the information to RAW. RAW sent the message to the Eastern military HQ by post, which got delayed, and no action was taken. When our military and spy agencies work with such precision and alacrity, how can one expect the police in our towns and cities to do better. Most of the time, they are busy providing bandobust to our netas and taking bribes. It is unlikely that these guys will be able to crack every murder case and hang the real culprits. Even though all death sentences have to be compulsarily reviewed by the Supreme Court (SC), it is not difficult to manufacture evidence. Only people who can’t afford could defence attorneys get sentenced to death.
UPDATE (19/11/04): I do however feel that an exemption should be made on certain offences so that capital punishment can be applied on
- People who make the TV serials
- Indian journalists working for foreign TV channels for using a fake accent that is neither Indian nor foreign.