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Blasts Which Killed 256 People (Courtesy: Huffpost) |
It has been a longish week. Every week is the same, seven days,
but some weeks have more than a fair share of events which demands your
attention. This week was such. These are the weeks which decide what we will
emerge as on the other end of the time.
This week, we learned much about Yakub Abdul Razak Memon,
brother of fugitive, Tiger Memon- Key operative behind the 1993 Mumbai Serial
Bomb Blasts. The media went into tizzy with the announcement of Maharashtra
Government’s Announcement of death sentence to Yakub Memon, scheduled for 30th
of July, 2015, at 700 hours, post dismissal of his curative petition on June,
21st. As the channels planned
for a walk towards gallows kind of programming, to much of their satisfaction,
suddenly they had something better to debate and discuss.
Nobody would have expected support to pore in from places of
eminence, like retired jurists and artists for the man convicted of planning
the murder of 257 fellow citizens. Surprising and disgusting. We learned
courtesy Main stream media that burgundy is the favorite color of Mr. Yakub
Memon (Indian Express Report). We also know that he is a handsome man (same
report). Death makes a good news report. That it needs heart, escapes most
journalists. Also, the overwhelming number of deaths makes it difficult to even
consider the life, or shortening of it in an individual perspective, let alone
their favorite colors.
Internet is a great platform. User Generated Content, as we call
in technical jargon is a great equalizer. So now everyone can be a journalist,
including yours truly. It makes it very difficult for the overwhelming
population of the country to hide stupidity. What began with trying to find an
equivalence between other terrorists in the prison with verdict pending and
Yakub Menon, slowly became blatant in protest. They in a way of sophisticated
intellectual camouflage attacked the highest judiciary as the media oscillated
between the term accused and convict.
An old report was unearthed, whereby Intelligence operative of
RAW, B Raman was quoted as there was some understanding was reached, wherein
Yakub Memon agreed to spill the beans on his brother, Tiger Memon. He did tell
the story, how in a well-structured terrorist operator, the whole family fled
away to Pakistan, where they were housed in a 20-bedroom posh house. B Raman’s
words were cited to free Yakub, as if those words were binding over the highest
court in the country. Yakub, it was proven in the court, ran the finances and
logistics for the ghastly attack to happen which took away more than two
hundred fifty unsuspecting lives. His role in the attack was well established
by the prosecution.
The clemency brigade still decided to take a contrarian view. They
said why hang Yakub when Tiger has escaped? It essentially meant, if there is a
crime which has happened, in which multiple people are involved, unless all of
them are held and punished at the same time, none should be. So their story is
till the time we get Tiger, Dawood and other perpetrators and additionally, get
terrorists arrested and convicted in other terrorist acts march in a unison
towards the gallows, no one should be punished. Salman Khan, happy in an erroneous
commercial story of Bajrangi Bhaijan came with the same plea- If Tiger cannot
be punished, why punish Yakoob? The absurdity of script of Bajrangi Bhaijan,
touted, to my dismay as great piece of art is another story. When we
righteously claim that India and Pakistan are essentially same people, we
ignore the basic facts, for instance, why is it totally impossible to
geographically reverse the script of Bajrangi Bhaijan. A Pakistani Muslim girl,
mistakenly left behind in India could go back to Pakistan as her Identity can
be established by indication like the little girl walking into the mosque,
looking for non-vegetarian food; the same would have been impossible for a
Hindu, Indian girl who might have lost her way into Pakistan, where she would
have found no Temples, no vegetarian food, no sign of Hinduism to establish her
identity. That the movie is naïve and ignores that people who moved to Pakistan
were those who did not believe in secularism, is another debate. That said, the actor, previously convicted for
running his vehicle over poor pedestrians and hitting physically a famed
actress, took the mantle of policy-maker and thought leader of international
relations, appealing to Pak PM to send Tiger Memon so that justice can be
served as if Tiger Memon were Munni of his movie and Nawaz Sharif were Bajrangi
Bhaijan.
AIMIM Chief, as usual raised the voice, together with other
political people like NCP and JDU, looking at Muslim Votes in Bihar election,
citing religion as the reason behind Supreme Court decision. I am still trying
to guess that in a PIL loving nation, where charges are filed for a sitting CM
(which is another absurdity of the week) calling Policemen Thulla and seeking
control over them on the premise which is as week as story line of any Salman
Khan movie, why no contempt of court has been filed. Mr. Owaisi, whose brother,
once famously claimed to wipe out one religion from the face of the nation, if
only given free hand by the Police, cites Religion as the key consideration of
the court in rejecting mercy for Yakub Memon and for obvious reasons ignores
that out of 150 plus hangings in independent India only 15 thus far are of
people from minority community, notwithstanding the fact, that the said
minority community is not numerically minor in India. Owaisi reiterates and
links the blasts itself with Babri demolition almost justifying the killings of
250 plus people, asks us to go back to the time of Babri demolition. He for
reasons, stops some twenty years back in the history and refuses to go back to
the time when the Mosque was made by an invader and the time when it was
abandoned as a place of worship by the faithful. I would refer to Jaipur metro
for which 200 odd temples where demolished, how many deaths would that justify,
even if we do not go to the time of Mughal and Tughlaqi invasions? This man is
a law-maker that we have elected.
Advocate KTS Tulsi, who appears on Television channel,
masquerading as a neutral political commentator, without mentioning his
official position as Congress’ MP for the Upper House, and without mentioning
his own House in Lutyen’s Delhi which he got in hurriedly released orders of UD
ministry right before the change of regime, goes further. He says that the
nation should be grateful to Mr. Memon for having disclosed to the nation, the secrets
of the crime to which he was party. This on the day that nation was expressing
gratitude to the soldiers who protected the country’s honor from an enemy
country. If he had a way, he would have added the name of Yakub Memon to the
list of Martyrs as a grateful nation expressed its gratitude on Vijay Diwas.
Media has long been in the habit of vociferously asking explanation from the PM
for any utterances of right-wing organizations even if they might not be
directly associated with the PM or his party.
I am yet to see anyone reaching out to Rahul Gandhi, the New and
improved one, after introspection in Bangkok, seeking his explanation to the
views of his MP. Two hours back, Retd. Justice Katju came out with a write-up
calling the SC decision a travesty of Justice. We cannot take that seriously,
after his emotional support for Sanjay Dutt in the same case, the eternal kid for the film fraternity, on the ground
that he has been making good movies. However, mercifully, he doesn’t say that
Mr. Memon should be granted clemency since he is a damn good CA, and he should
be allowed to file the returns for the honorable Judge. But then, he questions
the judgment and joins the forty others, who did not find time to sign the
petition for Captt. Saurabh Kalia ( In a enlightened society of India, with
Billion plus people, his father’s petition to take the case to international
court of justice is barely shade over two hundred thousand citizens (The Petitionfor justice to Martyr Captain Saurabh Kalia), After all why go to the courts at all, when you one, don't trust them to do justice, and two, are ambiguous about idea of justice and penalty.
Regarding an independent view on the validity of Capital
Punishment, I am not very clear about my own mooring. As long as the
gruesomeness of crime, the loss of lives it inflicted justifies it, I am in
favor of it. I would go with Immanuel Kant’s thought when he says that, “ A
society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody
else’s life is simply immoral.” John Stuart Mills (1806-1873) who is
oft-quoted by the leftists on liberty, states the restraining influence of
capital punishment, on the beginning of a thought which if
indulged, will become a temptation; the
check which it (capital punishment) exerts over graded declension towards the
state- never suddenly attained- in which crime no longer revolts, and
punishment no longer terrifies. Strong arguments are placed by those
opposing Capital punishment, mostly academics and rarely an affected party,
citing it as an act of brutal vengeance for an act committed in the past. Plato
answers it very clearly when he contends, “No, punishment is not inflicted by a
rational man for the sake of the crime that has been committed….but for the
sake of the future, to prevent either the same man or, by the spectacle of his
punishment someone else, from doing wrong again. This is a debatable
matter and debate will continue forever, I should however, close here with
Rousseau (Jeneva, 1712)- “Again, every rogue who
criminously attacks social rights becomes, by his wrong, a rebel and a traitor
to his fatherland. By contravening its laws, he ceases to be one of its
citizens: he even wages war against it. In such circumstances, the State and he
cannot both be saved: one or the other must perish. In killing the criminal, we
destroy not so much a citizen as an enemy. The trial and judgements are proofs
that he has broken the Social Contract, and so is no longer a member of the
State.”
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