Abolish capital punishment; don't make mockery of law

Balwant Singh Rajoana is not a simple assassin. He killed 16 innocent people, besides the then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in a blast which was aimed to rekindle militancy in the state at a time when it had been crushed.

What was ironical in the entire episode related to the hue and cry about clemency was that no one remembered the dastardly act he had done to destabilise Punjab at a time when law and order was being restored in the state after much bloodshed.

He committed the crime along with his accomplices in 1995 when Beant Singh had practically given a free hand to the then police chief KPS Gill to take all possible measures to curb terrorism with an iron hand. Gill succeeded but only after a loss of thousands of lives, an overwhelming majority of them innocents.

Through the bomb blast, Rajoana wanted to undo what Beant Singh and Gill had done – push Punjab back to dark ages of killings and counter killings. Fortunately wisdom prevailed and the hard earned peace was not frittered away even though Rajoana and his Babbar Khalsa accomplices tried their best to destabilise the state.

It was this peace which was at threat again due to the orders of a lower court in Chandigarh, fixing the date for hanging. Entire Punjab was on boil. There was utter confusion all this while. Rajoana wanted to be hanged and called a “martyr”. A section wanted clemency for him. Another section wanted law to take its own course. The Akal Takht came in for his rescue and so did the Shiromani Akali Dal. Congress too supported clemency even though the leader killed was from the same party. Senior police officials, who played a vital role in curbing militancy in the dark era of the 1980s and early 1990s, had a role reversal. They now wanted to save Rajoana so that law and order was not affected.

After the hanging was stayed and when frayed tempers have cooled down, I wonder what the need for death sentence in the statute is when everyone knows that it cannot be executed. Rajoana was not hanged on March 31 as scheduled nor do I see the possibility of him getting hanged in the foreseeable future. That is for sure. Even when all the legal options are exhausted and mercy petitions rejected, I have not seen any hanging be it Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar who killed over a dozen people in front of the Indian Youth Congress office in New Delhi or the Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru. Even the condemned killers of Rajiv Gandhi have not been hanged even though the Congress rules the Centre.

What is more troublesome is that whenever execution becomes imminent, there are petitions and counter petitions in the states from where the condemned militants hailed from. Law and order situation worsens and people come out on streets. It happened in Punjab when Bhullar’s mercy petition was rejected last year. In Kashmir valley, Afzal Guru has his sympathizers in the state assembly and outside while the killers of Rajiv Gandhi had their support base in DMK and a section of Tamil Nadu politicians.

My point is when you cannot give them the punishment of death as prescribed by law; why not scrap the practice of death sentence itself? At least, all these condemned prisoners will allow others to live in peace in the states from where they hailed from.

Had there been no date fixed for the death sentence of Rajoana, no one in Punjab would have bothered even to think about him. He would not have been given the title of “Zinda Shaheed” (live martyr) by the Akal Takht and people would have forgotten him had he died naturally in the jail 30 or 40 years from now. Rajoana has been in jail for the past almost 17 years and I wonder if anyone worthwhile bothered to even enquire about him all this while except for his sister who kept bringing out one letter after the other from Patiala jail to apprise the world what her brother was thinking.

Let us frankly admit that we as a country we cannot hang any person other than someone like Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard who was sent to the gallows in 2004 for the rape and murder of a 14-year old girl or the notorious Auto Shankar before him for a series of killings.

There would always be people who will differentiate one killing from the other. They would not like comparing Rajoana, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Afzal Guru with Chatterjee or Auto Shankar. But if Chatterjee and Auto Shankar were a threat to the society so are the others. In fact they are bigger threats to the society due to the impact they have on people at large and ideological conditioning which can lead to more such “political killings” in the future. In the entire process, the memory of a man who brought normalcy in Punjab – Beant Singh – is being vilified while that of the person who wanted to take it to the brink is being glorified.

Why don’t the saviours of Rajoana ever talk about the 16 innocent people who were killed with Beant Singh. Whatever the reasons for carrying out a dastardly act, nothing can condone the killing of innocents. Does the law distinguish one killing from the other? It doesn’t.

The issue with me is simple. Given the compulsions of some political parties like Akali Dal, DMK and the Kashmir based parties, no death sentence can ever be executed if the “cause” is different other than rapes and murders. Every now and then, there will be uproar and hue and cry when the date of execution nears and can lead to political fallout and law and order problems.

It is at this juncture that the state should realise its weakness and limitations in carrying out death sentence. Admit that you cannot hang Rajoanas, Bhullars and the Gurus and abolish death sentence by amending the law. Don’t keep the façade going. It is doing more harm than good. No one would be bothered about the cause and the killers if they are kept in jail for the remaining part of their life and come out of captivity only when they die due to natural reasons.

It was time the government thought and acted. (April 1, 2012)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/54098-abolish-capital-punishment-dont-make-mockery-of-law.html