CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR AJMAL KASAB

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR AJMAL KASAB



Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist and the lone culprit captured by the Indian Task Force on the fateful night of Terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, on 26.11.2008
has been sentenced to death by the trial court on various counts including the killing of 86 innocent people. Death sentence is given in India in the rarest of rare cases and what could be the rarest of rare case than the attack on India and killing its citizens.

Every time a death sentence in pronounced by a court, a serious debate starts to justify or otherwise the need of death penalty. It is argued that 95 countries have banned death penalty and 35 countries are on the way to do so. Presently over 60 countries have the provision of death penalty.

It has been argued that death sentence is unconstitutional as the constitution guarantees the fundamental right to live. At the same time, it is also true that if death sentence is in the statute books, it is legal. So many arguments have been in circulation both for and against death sentence ever since the civil society realized that eye for an eye or tit for tat is not the solution to reducing such heinous crimes as this type of punishment has not proved as a deterrent.

Moralists may argue that God has given life and He alone can take it away. Humans have no right to take life of anybody whatsoever may be the reason.

Philosophically, all the criminals need hospitalization as they are mentally sick and all the people reporting sick should be put in Jails as most of time they fake their illness.

Arguably punishment of any sort for any crime big or small is not deterrent. Crimes do happen in spite of or because of the punishment. The question therefore is how to balance the life of the accused and the victim. In the eyes of the victim the accused should be given example ray punishment so that no one dare to do so in future. The punishment may not reduce the pain or loss of the victim but it will give him the consolation that justice has been done and the accused, hopefully, will realize his mistake.

On the other hand the accused has his own reason for committing the crime. He might have killed in self-defense or to save his or his family’s honor (honor killing) or to take some revenge or for economic reasons, or simply by accident or as in the case of AjmalKasab , a brain washed highly motivated member of a terror gang. There can many reasons for people committing murders in cold blood.

In the early years of human history, might was right. People with might ruled over other people. With the evolution of human civilization, the need for legal justice system might have also evolved. This went through various phases of change before it came in its present form. It is therefore the considered opinion of our great social reformers that crime should be punished in direct proportion to the degree of crime.

In this background the concept of capital Punishment does not appear to be out of place particularly when the murder has been committed in well-planned manner with the sole intention of taking the life or lives of people. Ajmal Kasab’s case falls within this category and he should be hanged. True he was only a tool in the hands of his handlers in Pakistan but that does not reduce his crime.


H. P. Lakhera
May 9. 2010