CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN INDIA.

 

It is fashionable to say that there should not be any Capital Punishment in India. To buttress this argument it is cited that about 100 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. In fact when Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru & Yakub Memon were executed a lot of noise was made by groups in favor of abolishing the death penalty.

Whatever may have been the number of executions carried out on account of Capital Punishment in India earlier, after the year 2000, there seems to be a self-imposed restriction by the judges in clearing executions of convicts.

There is a perfect record of executions after the year 2000. Only 8 people have been executed since the year 2000 in a period of 23 years. They are

1.       Dhananjoy Chaterjee in the year 2004 for rape & murder of Hetal Parekh aged 14 in 1990.

2.       Ajmal Kasab in the year 2012 for the 2008 Bombay attacks.

3.       Afzal Guru in the year 2013 for the 2001 Parliament attack.

4.       Yakub Memon in the year 2015 for the 1993 Bombay bombings

5.       Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma & Pawan Gupta in the year 2020 for the Nirbhaya Gang rape case. In this case one of the accused had committed suicide in prison and the minor was let off from Capital Punishment.

So our higher courts despite the lower courts handing out death sentences have commuted them in most cases to life imprisonment. Only in the extreme unpardonable cases execution had been permitted. 

I personally feel Capital Punishment is a must in such cases as was done after the year 2000. I am well conversant as to how our courts operate and considering that, it is impossible to execute anyone who is innocent. Even if someone is deliberately fixed by another person of such heinous tasks it would become impossible to prove the culpability in the courts.

Some groups advance the argument that an innocent may be executed if a death punishment is there and his life cannot be brought back. Proving a person who is not guilty as guilty enough to get executed is just impossible. In fact, because of that very reason some people who deserve capital Punishment too get away and there is nothing the courts can do about it. In most cases, our Police too are responsible because they carry out a shoddy investigation on the matter and do not present tangible evidence to the courts.

I do not know about the Dhananjay Chaterjee case, but in the entire above hangings, one can see that there is extremely strong evidence against the culprits and they had been responsible for the most heinous offenses.

Why the Death Penalty?

1.       First and foremost is deterrence. The death penalty makes the culprits fear the repercussions of their actions. Yes, even a jail sentence is feared but the death penalty is feared even more. Of course, this deterrence does not work when a person is emotionally disturbed and does not think about anything else but killing the other person in a heinous manner. In fact, punishment itself is made for bringing deterrence in a criminal act. Even if deters only 10 people out of 100 from committing such an act then Capital Punishment is justified.

2.       The critics say it is a violation of human rights. However, I contend after committing such heinous offences the persons are no longer human and should be treated accordingly.

3.       The critics say that there may be a racial and socio-economic bias. There may well be a bias, but unless strong and clear-cut evidence is available the death penalty is simply not being awarded in India and hence this contention does not hold even remotely.

4.       It is very easy to argue against the death penalty. But are the people who argue ready to take the responsibility if a convict already undergoing life imprisonment for a heinous crime, so commuted because of their insistence escapes and commits another murder? Are they ready to be tried for abetment of that latest murder because it is on their insistence that his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment from death and that allowed the accused to commit another murder? If those advocates are ready to take that responsibility and give it in writing then there should not be any problem for commuting their sentences.