The HANGING verdict!

I have never been a proponent of the death penalty, and when Dhanonjoy Chatterjee was condemned to death after president Kalam rejected the mercy petition of this rapist and murderer of a minor girl in West Bengal, I wrote several letters against the death penalty to the editor of the Indian Express, participating in the letter-to-editor debate on the issue at that time. The debate notwithstanding, Dhananjoy was hanged in August 2004. The debate on capital punishment heats up every time someone is condemned to death by the courts of law. However, when the condemned person is a ‘commoner’ like Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the debate is usually confined on TV between the proponent and the opponent groups of the corporal punishment. Such debates hardly have any effect on the final decision by the courts. However, when the condemned convict happens to be an accused in utterly heinous but politically sensitive crime, the final outcome is not only liable to be delayed by the way of political interference, it is at times, without any inhibitions, attempted to be changed against even the supreme court’s judgment and the president’s rejection of the mercy plea. The same has happened when the TN high court temporarily set aside the Supreme Court’s orders as well as president’s rejection of the mercy plea, and granted a two-month stay to the execution of the three men convicted in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The stay has been granted following the defense counsel Ram Jethmalani's argument that there was an inordinate delay of 11 years in carrying out the Supreme Court’s orders of the death sentence. The defense has requested the court to commute the sentence altogether owning to this ‘lapse’.  Whether or not this qualifies for a reason for the judgment to be changed is a matter of law, but I’m appalled by the fact that the president’s office sat on the mercy plea for 11 long years! I’m saying president’s office, because the office had two different presidents, along with two rival alliances ruling at the centre in these 11 years. Now, it’ll surprise many of you, but Dhanonjoy’s mercy plea was rejected in a matter of few weeks! As soon as the TN HC granted a two month stay, there were ostentatiously jubilant celebrations across TN, even as the TN assembly unanimously passed a resolution to approach the president of India for reconsidering the death sentence!! MDMK chief Vaiko went on to say that if Rajiv’s killers are hanged, TN would secede from the republic of India!!! Now, if there ever was a seditious / blasphemous statement made, it is this. Now, I consider social networking site like Facebook a good measure of the public sentiment. There was NO furore, whatsoever, on this issue. As if matters concerning TN and Rajiv Gandhi’s killers were foreign to us in this part of the country. And J&K CM Omar Abdullah dropped a virtual bomb yesterday by tweeting the unthinkable. He showed the audacity of comparing Murugan’s case (One of Rajiv’s killers. There are three on the death row, but I’ll use this name only for simplicity) with Afzal Guru’s. The opposition parties were immediately up in arms and started accusing Omar of playing ‘vote bank’ politics. True, but he had only tweeted, not acted. But why not similar accusations for the politicians of TN, who are not only openly seen defending the cause of Murugan, they have made the ‘struggle’ as they put it, official by passing that resolution in the assembly? Viako was on national TV shouting hoarse favoring the dead prime minister’s killers. All this makes me ask a few questions. But before I do so, I reiterate, for the fear of being labeled unpatriotic, that if Afzal and Kasab were to be hanged and they are not able to find a hangman, I’ll be happy to tie the noose around their necks and pull the lever. Now the questions:

1. Why anyone displaying sympathy for Afzal Guru is quickly accused of being unpatriotic, and pro-Pakistan, while there are no such sentiments against hordes of Tamils sympathizing with Murugan? Remember, for a patriot, being labeled ‘unpatriotic’ is the worst nightmare.

2. Why is there so much of public fury for the delay in hanging Afzal guru, and there was/is none for the delay in Murugan’s case? (There was in fact absolute silence on the issue and I came to know about the 11 year delay in Murugan’s case only through newspapers a week ago).

3. Why is the central government accused of being partial, allegedly for Muslim votes, when a procedural delay is seen in Afzal’s case? Why is no one accusing the government of being partial to the Tamils in Murugan’s case?
4. Why is the country tolerating Tamilnadu assembly's official stance on Murugan's case while the J&K assembly is not allowed to even think on these lines?

It is quite simple to see that in both cases, it is petty vote bank politics that has caused the delay in carrying out the sentence. It is the Tamil votes in Murugan’s case, and Muslim votes in Afzal’s case. But if public fury is directed against only one of the two cases, I’m sorry I’m living in such times.