The Supreme Court staying the execution of Veerappan’s aides may give us breathing space as a society to ruminate over the death penalty. Inevitable as it seemed in the case of Ajmal Kasab, who attacked the Indian nation, the principles seemed somewhat less clear in the case of Afzal Guru, who was a conspirator rather than a killer. There is, of course, only a thin red line separating those who intend to cause harm and others who actually make the hits.
Having carried out two executions already, the state seemed extra keen to get through the pending cases, of which at least three are very prominent — the killers or conspirators in the assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh and the architects of mine blasts that killed 22 police personnel. The manner in which Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati attacked the mere admission of a desperate plea by Veerappan’s aides for a fair hearing by the apex court would suggest that an instrument of the state is being pro-active on its behalf towards eliminating more convicts using the mediaeval practice of hanging by the neck until dead.
Condemned to die or not, every individual has a right to exhaust all legal options and it is only fair that justice be delivered after due consideration of all pleas and without any kind of reference to race or religion of the convicted person. It is another matter altogether whether the death penalty should remain on the statute books and also whether the country should continue to use the rope to execute convicts for the worst crimes. If people should die for their crimes, let us be somewhat more merciful in killing them with a lethal injection, as is the practice in most states in the US.
Again, it is arguable whether the death penalty should have legal sanction in this day and age. It is known that 140 of 193 member states of the UN have abolished the death penalty. As we progress as a race, we should not be continuously consumed by the desire to carry out a rough and ready justice whereby people are hanged. But, then again, how do we deal with the worst excesses of devious minds that stop at nothing towards gaining their agenda? Is it possible to forgive those who kill our leaders or attack symbols of the state, like the Parliament building? What about those who blow up the personnel of our security forces even if the forest bandit’s henchmen claim that they had no option but to collaborate as the only alternative was instant death at the hands of Veerappan? It is time to think about the issue of life and death.