ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY !!!
-Fr.
Cedric Prakash sj*
So Yakub Memon was finally hanged to
death early this morning (July 30th) in the Nagpur Central Jail! The
54-year old Chartered Accountant was convicted for the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb
blasts which took the lives of 267 people and injured many more. The team of
lawyers defending him tried every possible option to stay the death penalty but
to no avail.
President Pranab Mukherjee rejected
Memon’s final plea for clemency despite a petition from several eminent citizens.
The petition which was signed by over 300 persons (former Supreme Court judges,
academia, human rights activists, film makers, politicians and others from
civil society) requested the President to stay Memon’s execution citing procedural
lapses and “disturbing aspects of this
case which make the award of death sentence of Yakub Memon as grossly unfair,
arbitrary and excessive”.
Apart from the fact that Yakub Memon had
already served more than the stipulated time for life imprisonment and that
there was little evidence of his direct involvement in the blasts, he was still
hanged. Several citizens have termed it as ‘legal murder’.
A sense of permissiveness seems to have
permeated several sections of Indian society. From last evening, one could see a sense of
gloating of ‘fait accompli’ - as
people thronged the gates of Nagpur Central Jail for ‘selfies’; media anchors
and reporters felt that it is their divine responsibility to scream and yell
for a man’s blood! The three members of the Apex Court wouldn’t even consider a
further fourteen days reprieve.
On the other hand, Maya Kodnani the linchpin
of the Naroda Patiya massacres (and already convicted to more than a life term)
gets bail today from the Gujarat High Court; the master-minds of the Gujarat
Genocide and the encounter killings of innocent youth, roam freely with
immunity and impunity and also hold some of the highest offices of the land;
Jayalalitha has been acquitted due to ‘miscalculations’ of her scandalous assets;
the Vyapam scam has already taken the toll of more than forty lives; the ‘Lalit-gate’
corruption issue; the killings of dalits, tribals and minorities; the
hate-speeches of law makers – for all this and more, many conveniently turn a
blind eye.
“There is indeed something rotten in the
State of Denmark!”
No, we are not advocating the death
penalty for anyone! The death penalty must be abolished! It is a barbaric act
and not in sync with civilised society. No violence can be justified; no murder
can be rectified; death penalty however is not the answer! Objective studies
clearly demonstrate that in nations and societies where the death penalty has
been abolished, the crime rate has decreased dramatically.
On March 20th Pope Francis
writing to the International Commission Against Death Penalty says, “today the death penalty is inadmissible, no
matter how serious the crime committed; capital punishment contradicts God’s
plan for man and society and does not render justice to the victims but rather
fosters vengeance.”
Two wrongs have never made a right. Let
us hope that at least in this ‘legal murder’ of Yakub Memon that we all awake
and work towards the abolition of the death penalty in India!
July 30th
2015
(* Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ is
the Director of PRASHANT, the
Ahmedabad-based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.)
Address: ‘PRASHANT’,
Hill Nagar, Near Saffron Hotel, Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad - 380052
Phone:
(079) 27455913, 66522333 Fax: (079) 27489018
Email: sjprashant@gmail.com www.humanrightsindia.in
Email: sjprashant@gmail.com www.humanrightsindia.in
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