W henever the maximum punishment is about to be carried out on the perpetrators of terror attacks, there is so much hullaballoo by vociferous fringe elements demanding the reduction or reversal of punishment imposed. The fallacies, hypocrisies and hidden agendas that surface in terror attacks related cases and the final punishment are too many and too evident to ignore. A group would emerge suddenly from nowhere whenever one of the perpetrators of terror attack is to be executed as per the due process of law and after the mercy petition is rejected. The group would then give a sermon that death penalty is state sponsored terrorism and hence should be scrapped. But, the same group would go to sleeper cells when the death warrant is issued against an ordinary citizen. These groups don’t consistently argue for the abolition of capital punishment as their aim is not the abolition of capital punishment across the board. Their demand for revoking of death sentence is essentially to save selective convicted people according to their hidden agenda and to promote sectarian interests. According to them, the terror attacks are done for a cause. Although not explicitly revealed, for them, the cause is to either to take revenge or to protect the sectarian interests and hence the terror attacks are fair. According to this group, the killing of Rajiv Gandhi and others and the series of bomb blasts that was unleashed by terrorists in Mumbai is fair and acceptable from the revenge point of view.
Did we ever hear any voice from these groups when Dhananjay Chatterjee was executed in 2004 for raping and murdering a girl? Gopalakrishna Gandhis and Ramadosses, who pressed for the pardoning of Yakub Memon to honour Kalam’s principles, have deliberately hidden the fact that Kalam had rejected the mercy petition of Dhananjay Chatterjee, when he was the President. It is again a fallacy that the then President, who had rejected the mercy petition of Dhananjay, would have granted mercy to Yakub Memon, who paralysed Mumbai with a series of bomb attacks. With no consistency for revoking capital punishment, these groups are the epitome of hypocrisy on capital punishment.
A terror attack is conceived, planned and executed in a sophisticated manner that the entire plot is not known to all those who are involved in the crime. This has been the strategy followed by the master minds of terror attacks to make it fail proof. However, these individuals know that they are part of the larger conspiracy to give effect to some major catastophe of the future. The limited knowledge on the entire plot does not absolve a person involved in a crime from his guilt. All those people involved in a crime are to be punished as per law, according to their culpability. Claiming innocence for Yakub Memon, on the premise that he has been punished instead of Tiger Memon, is an absolute nonsense.
The Indian system of justice punish a person only if the charges against him are proven beyond doubt. Had Tiger Memon been brought to justice and awarded capital punishment, the same elements who support cancellation of punishment for Yakub would have argued that it is Dawood Ibrahim or the intelligence agency across the border that should be held responsible for the crime and not Tiger.
Bringing in the archer-arrow analogy for those who have master minded the attack and the ones who have facilitated and executed the attack in order to seek innocence for the latter is again another fallacy. Unlike the archer-arrow analogy, where the arrow is an inanimate object, in case of terrorist attacks, the facilitators and executors are very well aware of what they are doing and the ensuing catastrophe. Moreover, it is practically impossible to bring all those involved in the terror attack all the time and this limitation does not absolve those who have been nabbed by the police, unless otherwise they are proven innocent in the court of law.
The elements that were seeking the release of the conspirators would be waiting to hail them as the avengers of their sectarian interest when they come out of jail. Numerous news items where the fringe elements justified the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and others have been there to corroborate this. Why the collective conscience of the society and country is unable to stop these elements using fallacious and hypocritical arguments to push their sectarian agenda which is against the larger national interest? Any terrorist attack would erupt uncontrollable anger, helplessness, trauma and demand for maximum punishment for the perpetrators at the time of incident. The collective conscience of the society to punish all those involved in those crimes would also be maximum immediately after the terror attack.
When time elapses, the enormous intensity of grief and pain reduces substantially for the public and even to the kith and kin of the victims. Even those who have been maimed in the terror attack would start accepting the handicap as the matter of fact of life as time passes and live helplessly. Moreover, the next generation takes the place of the people who actually witnessed the terror attack by the time the punishment for the convicted is executed. Unfortunately, the next generation, which did not witness the incident, fail to internalise the terror attack as much as the original population.
With about 22 years elapsed between the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts and the final execution of the punishment in 2015, about one third of India cannot internalise the gory of 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. By the time the punishment is executed, the collective anger and conscience of the society against such terror attacks would be at its lowest ebb and the vociferous sectarian group cunningly leverages the advantage of elapsed time to seek reduction or reversal of the punishment. How do we combat these fallacies, hypocrisies and hidden agenda pertaining to terror attacks and punishment to a great extent which are questioning the due process of law? The solution lies in executing final sentences for those involved in terror attacks within five years of the crime. Even these sectarian groups would remain tight lipped at least for a couple of years from the time of terror attack for the fear of severe repercussion.
Unless the judiciary, the governments and the occupants of August office, who have to dispose clemency petitions, sit together and think about developing framework so that the final judgment is executed within a period of five years from the time of terrorist attack, it may become extremely difficult to punish the convicted in future as per the due process of law.