Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 11, 2011
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/360207/Afzal-Guru-must-hang.html
If that upsets some, so be it
Nothing can be a more accurate reflection
of our criminal justice system, which is ultimately dependent on the commitment
of the political class to uphold the law of the land, than the large number
of people who have been found guilty of horrendous crimes and sentenced to
death but have been kept waiting for their date with the hangman simply because
the Government finds it convenient to sit on their mercy petitions. While
the Constitution bestows the President with the power to commute the death
sentence, the decision is ultimately that of the Government, namely the Ministry
of Home Affairs. It is nobody's case that those sentenced to death should
be deprived of the chance to appeal to the Head of State to spare their lives.
But nor is it acceptable that such appeals should be kept pending, often on
account of political reasons. The mercy petition of Afzal Guru is a case in
point. Held guilty of being a mastermind behind the ghastly terrorist attack
on Parliament House in 2001, Afzal Guru was sentenced to death; the punishment
was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004. Meanwhile, there was a regime change
with the Congress-led UPA coming to power in the summer of 2004. The new Government
found it politically convenient to keep the issue pending, hoping it would
fetch it brownie points. And so Afzal Guru has been sitting on death row for
seven years, which defies the purpose of retaining the death penalty on the
statute books. Like him, several others are awaiting the fate of their mercy
petitions. Ironically, the decision to reject the mercy petitions in the cases
that have been taken up and dealt with only serve to highlight the purposelessness
of the whole exercise. The utility or otherwise of the death penalty is a
matter of debate, but so long the law of the land provides for this form of
punishment to deal with criminals who are a danger to society, killers and
terrorists like Afzal Guru must be dealt with accordingly. There is no percentage
in feeling kindly towards them.
Seen in this context, if the Government has
recommended that Afzal Guru's mercy petition be turned down, then it has merely
done what it should have done years ago. Be that as it may, now that the file
has moved, hopefully the President will not allow it to gather dust in her
office. If that were to happen, it would be a pity, just as it would be to
our nation's eternal shame if Afzal Guru were to walk free without paying
for his crime. It is absurd to suggest, as has been done by a leading beneficiary
of the ISI's largesse routed through Ghulam Nabi Fai and his Kashmiri American
Council, that punishing Afzal Guru will disrupt the peace in the Kashmir Valley.
That is of a piece with Syed Ali Shah Geelani's threat to unleash violence
if the man who attacked the nation's symbol of democracy and is hence hero-worshipped
by fellow terrorists is despatched to the other world. Syed Ali Shah Geelani's
sabre-rattling should be contemptuously ignored, as should the utterances
of others in the All-Party Hurriyat Conference and the bunkum of pompous,
self-declared 'intellectuals' who have anything but the interest of India
at heart. Let us not forget that Mrs Indira Gandhi scornfully thumbed her
nose at both separatists and 'intellectuals' when she sent Maqbool Butt to
his well-deserved death.
