Sunday, September 26, 2004

Of capital punishment...

Ah... lot of psenti stuff put up in a lasr few posts... Here is one of those not so psenti ones...

Last Monday there was this huge debate on NDTV about capital punishment being awarded for rapists... And I started thinking but this post is not about that issue... After a lot of thinking what I started to think was that we Indians have a habit of trying to make heroes out of villains...

I mean how else can one describe the huge number of so called "intellectual" people coming out and claiming that it was injustice to award Dhananjoy a death penalty... And that too for all pathetic reasons... They say his parents have no other support... Did anyone give Hetal's parents a thought... Again they say that he has been in imprisonment for too long and his mental state is not good... Ha... what a joke... was it ever ok??... and in any case the remedy for that is a quicker justice process and not letting him go free... But then the Bengali 'bhadralok' would be happy if he was set afree... but will they employ him as a gaurd in their own houses??

Boy I digress a lot... Neways getting back to the point now... Why do we have to make heroes out of such people?? Is it because or public figures have failed us too often... I could not think of anything better...

Anyone got other ideas???

2 comments:

The Tobacconist said...

capital punishment is seen as a form of retribution for the victim's family. that is the general opinion among most people. i am sure you see it that way too. the law doesn't look at it that way.
i gave this dhanajoy case a lot of thought and i feel people say a lot of shit without knowing what they are up against. is the evidence in that case conclusive? or does his death penalty have to do more with his social status or his inability to find an attorney who'd defend him appropriately.
it is the sorry truth that most of the death sentences are handed out to people who are under-represented. the same laws don't apply to all and sundry and many people get away with murder-literally. you only have to look at the jessica lal case in delhi. there are hundreds of such cases which get hushed up.
in the end i feel no one has the right to end human life. no matter what that person has done. you don't have to condone it but you don't have to kill him either. do you think it serves as a deterrent? it doesn't!
state sponsored murder is not a solution!

sanketh

m. said...

ive a question to ask too :

why do we hunt so diligently for ways to let the accused off the hook in a rape, when we dont even give the victim a decent hearing?

the person who is raped often has to fight to prove so : they are always treated as lying-until-proven otherwise.

on the other hand, the rapist is given the utmost benefit of doubt. humanitarian grounds are evoked to let him off the hook. how about first stating that very reason to protect the innocent???

seems to me like were saying well do anything other than validate the victims pain.