The 21th November,
2012 news read that one of the ten terrorists who was part of the 26/11 carnage
in the city of Mumbai and the only one to have been captured alive, Mohammad
Ajmal Aamir Kasab was executed at the Yerwada jail in Pune. Kasab and his
fellow terrorists were involved the loss of 166 lives over the next three days
after 26/11 until the security forces neutralized them in a surgical operation
conducted by the National Security Guards. Of the dead were military personnel,
police officers, foreign nationals and ordinary Indian citizens. The city of Mumbai was scared forever from the
tragic turn of events.
A special trial court was setup
to hear the case. The defence lawyers changed many times due to various
reasons. Finally the special court gave its verdict on 6th May, 2010
awarding capital punishment to Kasab. This was challenged at the Bombay High Court
which upheld the judgment of the trial court. And later Kasab moved to the Supreme Court which also upheld the death
penalty to Kasab in its judgment dated 29th August, 2012. Even the
last option, the one that of submitting a mercy plea to the President of India
was invoked for Kasab. The President as per constitution has to act on the
advice of the Council of Ministers (Art. 72) and once the Home Ministry also
rejected the petition, the President gave his consent and the execution
followed.
Now what was interesting is that
our politicians across party lines were quick to gather some brownie points
from the whole episode. Some said, this is the victory of India, others termed
it as honoring the wishes of the Indians and still others said that this would
send a strong message to our neighbor. But my argument is a simple one. What is
the result we are trying to achieve by executing the one who had anyways embarked
on the journey to India as part of a ‘fidayeen’ squad, and was anyways prepared
to die on 26/11 itself at the first place. In retrospect the execution of Kasab
I feel was just mere tokenism on part of the government? And what was more
interesting that the principal opposition party was quick to jump on the
bandwagon and rake up the issue of Afzal Guru, the one found guilty of the
attack on the Parliament in 2001, and demand his execution too. Look what
politics and political parties have stooped to, in our times. In the absence of
any clear ideological backbone they have reduced to using death convicts as
crutches for survival and sustenance of their appeal among the masses.
On the sidelines of preparation
of the execution of Kasab there was a the debate unfolding in the UN General
Assembly on the 19th Nov,2012 on having a moratorium on capital
punishments in the world. In this debate India voted against having any such moratorium.
Altogether 110 countries voted for the motion i.e. to have a moratorium, and 39
were against it. India was among Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China,
Japan, Singapore and the US who all voted against the motion. Now I have a
slight discomfort with this. Though in India, the actual figures of executions
are far less, as compared to that of countries like China and Iran. The
previous execution was carried out in India in 2004, when India hanged a man
convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1990. But still is it
befitting for a nation like ours which espouses the beliefs of non-violence and
‘satyagraha’, to be found in such a club of nations. I certainly feel that all
the Gandhian principles and philosophies of our founding fathers have gone for
a toss. Are our actions as a nation in consonance with the long cherished
values of peace and non-violence espoused by them?
Nevertheless there is a silver
lining among the dark clouds. One has to compliment the Indian judiciary which
persisted four years to take the case to its logical conclusion. Our judicial
framework provided the best possible legal arrangements for Kasab from having a
lawyer to submitting a mercy plea to the President. The entire gamut of options
was exercised. This should re-affirm our faith in the legal framework of our
nation which grants all, the right to explain and place before the court her or
her side of the story, even if it’s a non-citizen terrorist like Kasab. And as
far as long as death penalty is concerned as long as this option is available
in our statutes it would continue to get invoked in the “rarest of the rare
cases” as was this one.
Now the prime issue here is not
of Kasab who, as the honorable Supreme Court noted, never showed any sign of
remorse or repentance throughout his prosecution and therefore his
rehabilitation was ruled out by the apex court itself. But I have a larger
point to make here. Kasab in his confessions clearly stated that he came from
an impoverished family and was lured into joining the ‘jihadists’ for money and
for leading a decent life. Kasab was illiterate as his lawyers have pointed out
that he knew to neither read nor write. He even spent some time working as a
daily wage laborer before joining the LeT. The story of Ajmal Kasab
corroborates the fact that poverty, illiteracy and unemployment are the
greatest scourges in any society. And
with these issues looming large in our own society can India really claim victory
from the execution of Kasab? Executing someone who was already been put behind
the bars or had already decided to die several years’ earlier, serves little
purpose. I understand that no amount of words or actions are enough to console
the ones who lost their loved ones in the shootout in the wee hours of November
26, 2008 in Mumbai and the kith and kin of our security personnel who fought to
free Mumbai from the clutches of terrorists. Especially the courageous act of Tukaram
Ombale, the valiant police officer who laid down his life which led to the
capture of Kasab, will always remain etched in golden letters in the history of
our country. But one thing is sure. Unless we get our act together and fight
the ills in our society we would be no better than the society which Mohammad
Ajmal Aamir Kasab came from. Therefore the question remains are we really
better off with the execution of Kasab?
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