Should
Mohammad Afzal Guru
Be Hanged?
By Ram Puniyani
09 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
As
per the Supreme Court has given the judgment, Mohammad Afzal Guru is
to be hanged to death on 20th October 2006. Guru was one of the accused
in the case of assault on the Parliament on 13 December 2001, in which,
many a security personnel were killed. Guru was not found to be to be
part of any terrorist outfit, nor did he play any direct role in the
same. In the trial which took place the provisions of International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had not been respected. Supreme
court noted that there is no direct evidence of his involvement. The
evidence was mainly circumstantial. All three courts including Supreme
Court have acquitted him of the charges under POTA of belonging to either
a terrorist organization or a terrorist gang. Court also noted that
the evidence was fabricated. Most importantly he was not given any worthwhile
legal assistance to defend him during interrogation. When Ram Jethmalani
offered to be his lawyer the Hindutva goons attacked his office. One
also recalls here that the lawyers offering to hold the brief of accused
in 11 July 2006 Mumbai blasts were also threatened by Hindutva outfit,
a real case of cowardly display of pseudo patriotism. At best Guru was
facilitator in the crime and not a part of directly perpetrating the
crime. Supreme Court notes that "The incident, which resulted in
heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience
of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded
to the offender." So does it mean that the punishment is being
given to assuage the collective national conscience? One must add what
is presented as this conscience is the consciousness of the section
of dominant middle classes.
Many a Human rights activist
of repute sat on a dharna demanding the commutation of the death sentence,
to life imprisonment. They issued appeals to the same effect and also
have floated the petitions forn clemency. Not to be left behind another
section of activists have floated counter petitions demanding nothing
short of death penalty for this terrorist. In various talk shows the
angry audience is hooting down those talking of the facts of the case
and asking for leniency in the light of the holes in the story built
by the police authorities. There are two major questions involved in
the case. One, that death penalty should be given in the rarest of rare
cases, and two when world over the brutal capital punishment is being
done away with, should we stick to it. The other peripheral issues which
are trying to undermine the basic issues are the hysterical nationalism
of Hindu right and sections of society who cannot think that the crime
of those accused of acts of terror also needs to be proved before they
are punished, and that the punishment has to be commensurate with the
crime. For them once Supreme Court has ruled the doors for clemency
are closed.
The base on which Supreme
Court has given the judgment has been built by the police with methods
which are questionable, which have also been reprimanded by the court
in this case. The argument on the other side is that if Guru is not
hanged it will be an insult to those who have laid their lives for defending
the parliament. The other question, which has got mixed up this, is
the fate of peace process, which is going on in Kashmir and South Asia
as a whole. In the visual media debates, one can see the hysterical
nationalism oozing from every pore of Hindu right wing and some others.
Some Muslim spokespersons of this or the other party are finding this
as the best opportunity to wear their patriotism on their sleeves by
taking blinded firm positions against any consideration of clemency.
This became most obvious when Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of BJP went to the
extent of denying that Bhagat Singhs kin can ever make a clemency petition
in this case, to the loud applause of the studio audience. As matter
of fact the appeal by Bhagat Singhs kin Prof Jagmohan Singh and Anand
Patwardhan, the noted documentary film maker and rights activist, had
issued the appeal carried by the media. It is unlikely that the BJP
spokesperson would have missed it; any way some times even ignorance
is bliss to pursue once political assertions! The response of letter
writers in the newspaper columns is no different. Most of them demanding
the blood of this 'terrorist'! Nothing else can reflect the state of
social common sense in the society. By now communal violence has become
passé in the society. It is justified to the extent that those
involved in this are neither punished nor even looked down upon. On
the other hand any body remotely linked to acts of terror can be hanged
without any pangs of conscience, communal patriotism at is worst is
on display.
While Supreme Court deserves
all the respect, one has to see that the primary investigation done
by the police, whatever its flaws, forms the base of the judgment. When
that investigation has holes should it be accepted as it is presented?
When the primary culprits are either dead are some of them absconding,
can 'the whole truth be out'? Or is it that somebody has anyway to be
punished to quench the thirst for revenge, and who better than the one
who has a Muslim name and happens to be from Kashmir. Kashmir has been
reduced to 'our' real estate, where we are putting
lakhs of our army to deal with couple of thousand of militants! Surely
if there is one Indian soldier for every seventh Kashmiri, no wonder
Kashmiris will see it as an occupation army. After having said that
the punishment being meted out to Guru is not commensurate with the
crime done by him, one will also endorse that the very notion of capital
punishment is nothing but barbarism, and it does not become dignified
if it is given to a terrorist. Many of those otherwise swearing by non
violence are so communalized at core that they are at the forefront
of some or other moves demanding the hanging of Guru.
One can understand that for
RSS and its affiliates this is the golden opportunity to display their
patriotism, partly also to wash the sin of accompanying the terrorists
to Kandhar by one of their ministers. One can also understand the success
of RSS in communalizing the social thinking to the extent that now truth
and humane values have ceased to matter in the face of communal thinking.
Justice is being converted into revenge and punishment is meant to further
communalize the society rather than a means of reform, rather than being
an occasion to introspect as to why such crimes are going on. Surely
no one is born a terrorist and no one likes to resort to these means
by choice. What are the deeper circumstances due to which these acts
of violence are taking place needs to be given a thought. One understands
that terrorism is a mere symptom of the underlying disease, which has
roots in injustices somewhere. One understands the terrorism cannot
be finished by killing the terrorists. For that the underlying causes
have to be addressed.
The double standards of our
society and legal system are becoming glaringly apparent. The perpetrators
of communal violence not only get away with their crimes but also some
times they get promotions, as in the case of Ramdeo Tyagi of Maharashtra.
Hundreds of police officials who have been named in the inquiry commission
reports are enjoying the 'fruits' of their crimes of omission and commission.
Thackeray and Modi who have been the main architects of Mumbai and Gujarat
riots respectively, could not even be touched by the long arm of law.
On the contrary they landed up increasing their political clout after
presiding over these genocides. While the perpetrators of Mumbai riots
are having a gala time the culprits of subsequent bomb blasts are being
meted out the punishments due to them. The general impression is gaining
ground in the society that by now there are two legal systems in the
society. One for the followers of Hindu communalism, where killer of
Pastor Stains, Dara Singh, is spared the noose and is hailed as Hindu
Dharma Rakshak (protector of Hindu faith), the perpetrators of communal
violence who get away with ease. The other one is for those who belong
to minorities. In their case even the remotest association with the
terror attacks is ground enough for hanging or the severest possible
punishment.
In Kashmir, Indian army is
seen as the occupation army, thousands of innocents have been tortured
by this army, Chittsingpura is just a tip of iceberg. The hanging of
Maqbool Bhat in 1984 did give a feeling of alienation and later a boost
to militancy. Who do we blame for that? Those calling for a hangman
for Guru surely are bent upon repeating the process. Nation can watch
the hanging of those who have not committed the crime of such a severe
proportion, but while hanging them what processes will be unleashed
need to be seen overcoming the communal myopia. We must distinguish
between the hysterical nationalism of the likes of those demanding the
hanging and the humane nationalism wanting to call for reconsideration
of the punishment meted out, to sooth the feverish pitch of communalized
sections of society. This hanging will surely reinforce the perception
of two sets of legal norms which are prevalent in the country.
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