The Case for Capital Punishment

Ever since Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist captured during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai has been sentenced to death, the intellectuals and human rights groups have once again found reason to talk about how humanity would benefit from abolishing the death penalty.  Some have argued that if death penalty is abolished and the culprits given an opportunity to reform themselves into civilized citizens, it would be a victory for our democratic and humanitarian values.

Before I present my arguments supporting capital punishment, let me present some facts about the death penalty (source: Wikipedia).

• Currently only 58 nations actively practice it, with 95 countries abolishing it (the remainder having not used it for 10 years or allowing it only in exceptional circumstances such as wartime)
• Over 60% of the world’s population lives in countries where executions take place and this includes the People’s Republic of China, India, United States and Indonesia
• In a poll completed by Gallup in October 2008, 64% of Americans supported the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, while 30% were against and 5% did not have an opinion
• Roughly six in 10 tell Gallup they do not believe capital punishment deters murder and majorities believe at least one innocent person has been executed in the past five years.

In India, the judiciary has said that death penalty be awarded only in the rarest of the rare case. The human rights groups are evidently not happy even with this and want total abolition. I support the rarest of the rare clause as it is a directive to the courts that they need to be cautious about awarding a death sentence. However, everyone would agree that ‘rarest of the rare’ is a very loosely defined term and what constitutes rare is known to no one. I support the death penalty for crimes like terrorist acts, murder and rape.

Terrorist acts are the simplest of all because they are an act against the entire nation. For murders, revenge killings can be considered cases where the court may want to understand the motive and circumstances behind the crime. But in case of murders committed for robbery, honour killings – the decision should always be in favor of capital punishment. This is because the victim had done nothing to ‘deserve’ such an end and it was the greed or narrow mindedness of the accused which led him/her to commit the crime. Case in point being a murder committed in Borivali, Mumbai a few years back where robbers hanged a small child so that nobody could report anything to the police. What is the use of trying to reform such criminals? Or the honour killings – where one person orders the killing of a couple who fell in love?

I believe our laws against rape don’t take into account the emotional trauma the victim suffers for life. As opposed to a murder, where the victim dies once, a rape victim has to live through the trauma every day and at the same time handle the social stigma that comes with it. Rape irrespective of whether the motive was revenge or pure lust is a crime where death penalty is the best punishment. Nothing justifies it and I would not want to run the risk of getting more women raped by giving the perverts a chance at reform.

Some would argue that what if an innocent gets punished and loses his life? Looking at our judicial system where it takes years to close a case, one is reasonable to assume that the judge would have sufficient evidence before he takes the call. Moreover, rather than opposing the death penalty for fear of punishing innocents, judicial reforms are required to ensure crimes are reported, victims and witnesses are protected and police does its duty. Another check against injustice is the provision of mercy petition before the President of India.

There is an economic angle also. What Kasab did was available for all to see using the CCTV footage. Why did we have such a long trial? When the evidence was there, why did we waste so much money trying to prove something which was proved from day one? Does it make sense if we don’t trust the footage of the CCTV cameras that we ourselves put up? India needs money to take care of its population and the creaking infrastructure. I am now afraid to board a local train, go to malls and cinemas or to crowded markets. Yet it is my tax money which is being used to feed the same persons who instilled this fear in me. What about my human rights?

Finally, there is the lame argument that capital punishment will not deter criminals and terrorists. I agree. It will not. We will continue to have terrorist attacks, murders and all other crimes. But what makes our intellectuals believe that reforming criminals will curb violence in future. If we set Kasab free, will it move LeT to tears and make them disband their jihad against India? No. A big no.

Hence, I argue that India should stick to capital punishment and define the ‘rare’ clause more comprehensively to include rape, murder, honour killings and terrorist attacks in its ambit. It may not make us any safer but it will at least give some relief to the victims when they know that those who wronged them are not roaming freely outside some reform centre waiting for their next unsuspecting victim.

A slightly different version of this article was first published in e-magazine Reader’s Quotient on May 17, 2010

http://readersquotient.com/2010/05/17/the-case-for-capital-punishment-2/

An Acid Test for the Law

October 5, 2006 Dehradun: A man named Avinash Sharma makes a plan and his accomplice Prem Singh executes it perfectly. The girl’s face gets burnt by the acid thrown on her. Uttarakhand police arrest the two men.

November 13, 2006: As Rangoli Ranaut receives treatment in a Mumbai hospital, the Dehradun court grants bail to Avinash and Prem. Avinash is said to be obsessed with Rangoli and the motive behind the ghastlt attack is supposedly Rangoli’s refusal to marry him.

January 30, 2007 Mumbai: Actress Kangana Ranaut lodges a complaint in the Versova police station after receiving threat calls and SMSes from Avinash. She is told to help him marry Rangoli or face the same consequences as met by her sister.

This incident shows the disadvantages of the reactive nature of our law and order system, especially the Indian Penal Code (IPC). While granting bail to the accused, the Dehradun court did not consider the possibility of Avinash trying to inflict the same pain on some other innocent woman. When the IPC was devised, probably an acid attack was not the preferred modus-operandi of rejected lovers. But in the 21st century, it is common to hear about it all over in India – in small towns as well as large cities. Yet our laws have not kept pace with the crime. The victim often suffers immense psychological trauma besides physical pain. A disfigured face may damage the victim’s self-confidence and self-respect. It may also lead to a case wherein the victim finds it extremely difficult not only to get married but also to work without evoking pity or disdain from those around her. All this while the culprits roam about freely, get little or no punishment as the case drags on for years and feel no remorse for spoiling the life of an individual. The Kangana incident actually shows Avinash using the ‘acid-attack’ as a tool to force people to fall in line. In my opinion, such people should be charged on the following counts: [1] Causing physical and emotional trauma [2] Trying to prevent the victim from leading a normal life and/or even driving her to suicide [3] Using ‘acid-attack’ as a terror tool to get things done.

By granting bail to these people and by delaying conviction (such cases can be decided in two days maximum), the system is actually sending three messages to the citizenry:

1. We cannot protect you.

2. We cannot guarantee this will not happen to your near and dear ones in the future.

3. The culprit’s right to freedom is more important than the victims’ right to lead a life of dignity and self-respect. (That’s why they are so fast in granting bails)

This is the problem in having a reactive law rather than a pro-active one. We cannot take action against a person having mala fide intentions. We must wait till the damage is done. It is true we cannot be pro-active all the time but should we not try to prevent a murder if someone publicly declares his intention to kill? What should be the right punishment for the likes of Avinash and Prem? Some argue it should be nothing less than death (See: Death sentence to acid throwers ) and it’s an option worth looking at. Who needs such psychopaths in a civil society? The pro-active system has its flaws (as in the shooting down of a Brazilian after the London bomb blasts) but the reactive one is perhaps a greater evil.

From Bad to Worse

Shibu Soren is the first MP to be held guilty of murder and to be sentenced to life imprisonment. While the conviction has reinforced the common man’s belief in the system, it also has once again brought to the forefront the question of criminalization of politics. Even if one leaves Guruji, as Soren is known among his followers, aside, there are many others who have cases pending against them. Two years ago, a study by an independent watchdog had said that almost a quarter of the over 540 people elected to the Indian Parliament in 2004 faced criminal charges ranging from murder, extortion and rape. (Source: ANI)

I have always been unable to understand why do our universities need elections or a Student Union for that matter? I did my engineering from a private institution, a deemed university under the UGC act, and we did not have any union. For all our issues and concerns, we used to approach the dean or the warden. Needless to say, sometimes the concerns were addressed and sometimes we were overlooked. But never did we feel the need for a student union. I wonder then why students of our universities are so interested in student politics. Some days back, a teacher was murdered by activists of a student union in MP. In Maharashtra, a professor’s face was blackened on the charge of molestation though there was no evidence to prove the charge. In most of these cases, students wing of political parties are involved.

The Lyngdoh Committee, a six-member committee headed by former Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, was constituted on the direction of the Supreme Court in December 2005 to study various aspects of student union elections. The committee examined aspects like the criminalization of student politics, financial transparency, eligibility criteria for students and standards of academic performance and one of its key recommendations was that political parties should have no roles to play in the university and college campus. The committee has recommended a check on the money being pumped into the elections and says students older than 26 years should not be allowed to contest elections and those studying to get a third degree irrespective of the age should also be barred. Despite these recommendations, the UP government has decided to go in the opposite direction. It has strengthened the hands of prospective goons in university campuses by giving gunners to many university students. For those who love numbers – in Lucknow University alone, there are as many as 80 students with a criminal background. With elections in UP round the corner, the region is abuzz with rumours that Mulayam’s Samajwadi Party may offer a ticket to gangster Abu Salem, who is accused of playing a critical role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts.

If criminals are to be kept away from public life and politics, it has to be done not only at the centre but right from the state-politics level. Our MPs are not happy with the interference of judiciary in legislative matters but the fact remains that the legislators have let the nation down and it is up to the judiciary to clean up the system. They may not like this judicial activism but the people are all for it.

Unfortunately, the political parties will again turn a blind eye to all this. After all, it serves their interest to scare the common man using the muscle of the criminal activists. And the quality of education and students will go from bad to worse as it has happened in the case of our elected representatives.

Crime and Punishment

It upsets me to see the kind of support a terrorist is enjoying in our country. Imagine the Chief Minister of a state asking the President to go easy on a convict. And what convict? One who helped execute a terror attack on the Parliament, the symbol of our democracy. But this is precisely what J&K CM did.

However the worse was still to come. In a brazen effort to achieve greatness, the nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh wrote an open letter to the President asking him to grant clemency to Mohd. Afzal Guru, the man who helped the terrorists execute an attack on the Parliament on December 13, 2001 – a daring act in which seven people(5 policemen, 1 parliament security guard and a gardener) lost their lives.

Jagmohan Singh wrote that a civil society must not seek revenge by hanging the perpetrators of crimes against the citizenry. Moreover, the system must allow for the fact that Afzal may not be guilty at all since no investigation is guaranteed to be free of error. The other point he raised and this is something that is supported by a lot of people and bloggers is that a death penalty has not been proved to be a deterrent to vicious and heinous crimes.

Let us take these points one by one. No investigation or judgment is free from a possibility of error. Does this mean that we stop punishing criminals? Won’t it be better to shut down courts instead? After all, whether it is death or imprisonment, if it’s a wrong judgment, it is injustice. Period.

It is true that capital punishment is no deterrent and a civic society must not resort to revenge. But punishment is different from revenge. It is revenge only for those who actually support the culprit. While executing Afzal may not prevent future terror attacks, what will keeping him alive achieve? Actually, it will achieve two things:

• Contrary to the popular logic, it will not effect a change of heart. Since Afzal himself has refused to apply for clemency, it shows he is not one who can be reformed. He is a true to the core jehadi who has no regrets for what he did. Letting Afzal go will only set an example for terrorists who will then come at us harder than ever before.

• The other thing that clemency will achieve is that it will cause a lot of heartburn for kins and kiths of those who lost their family members during the parliament attack. They might get turned against the system. Hence a Presidential pardon will not curb terrorism but sow seeds of future homegrown terrorism.

If Afzal is granted a reprieve, how will justice be done to the families of those who lost their near and dear ones defending the parliament? While killing Afzal may not bring those heroes back, still should we treat their martyrdom so cheaply? Such an action will demotivate the Security forces. Moreover, from an economic point of view, why should the citizens pay for Afzal’s upkeep while he is serving his sentence in jail? I pay taxes so that I get benefits in return; not for the Government to feed someone who will act against me the day he is out from jail.

The support Afzal is getting in Kashmir is obviously because he is a kashmiri himself. But letting him go free will set a bad example for the rest of the country. Life imprisonment will only show Indians how the law and political set-up behaves differently when it comes to kashmiris. This will not allow kashmiris to join the mainstream. All this talk about execution of Afzal leading to his attaining the status of a martyr is crap. And even if it is true, it is a risk India will have to take. Because whether its death or life imprisonment for Afzal, the ground-reality is not going to change for either kashmiris or for the Islamic terrorists. If kashmiris want a new destiny for themselves, they have to decide whether they want to do so by staying with the rest of India or going against it. A criminal is a criminal – whether he is a North Indian or a South Indian or a kashmiri. There cannot be two yardsticks for justice. The argument that Afzal Guru did not pull the trigger is fallacious. Kehar Singh was executed for killing Indira Gandhi even though it was not he who pulled the trigger.

If one follows Jagmohan Singh’s philosophy, then we can forget about justice for Jessica Lall, Priyadarshini Mattoo and Nitish Katara. Because according to his logic, the killers may change once mercy is shown towards them. Is he so naïve to understand that once nabbed, every criminal pretends to show remorse? Consider one fallout of Singh’s logic: if Afzal Guru must get only a life term for taking so many lives, a rapist will surely get less than 14 years. So, after a few years, the rapist will continue with his life in a normal manner. But spare a thought for the victim who would suffer the scars of this heinous crime for her entire life? While a death penalty for the culprit will not change her life, how will she feel when she sees the offender living a normal life? Imagine the hell Nitish Katara’s mother will go through if she has to live with the realization that while her son died an unnatural death, his killer is alive and in fact, she is the one who is paying taxes for his upkeep.

India has a long history of forgiveness. Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Mohammed Gauri seventeen times and forgave him each time. But after the only battle Gauri won, he ordered Prithviraj’s blinding. Forgiveness is a good virtue but it may not be the best policy always.

These are the reasons why India should set an example for the terrorists. If you mess with the Indian state, you will not be spared. Moreover, the law should mandate capital punishment for other crimes wherein the criminals have displayed intense brutality and lack of remorse and also in cases, where the crime has left an indelible scar on the victim. It may not prevent crimes but do we have any need for such barbarians in our society?