Yesterday tamilnadu house passed a resolution for the reconsideration of capital punishment for the Rajiv Gandhi killers to the president. This kicked off yet another metaphysical, philosophical and humanitarian debate on death sentence.
One of the argument against death penalty is in the style of arundhati roy i.e death sentence is based on eye-for-an-eye principle, which is inhumane, uncivilized, un-tv-like etc etc. Their argument is, death penalty is just another name to murder, because in both the cases taking some ones life is involved. Its like saying there is no difference between rape and making love, because in both the cases sex is involved !
Punishment is not just hurting someone for joy or revenge, it sends a warning signal to others besides teaching the guilty a lesson. A punishment is not given only considering the graveness of crime, but also considering the motivation which caused it. Manu sharma was given lifeterm in jessica lal case, because he killed her on spur of the moment, it was impulsive, he had no intention to kill her before, but he knew he was killing her while killing her. In bhopal disaster, those seven employees and chairman dont even know that their mistakes are going to kill thousands. They didn't plan to kill them, they dont know that they are killing them, but their mistakes lead to heavy human loss, they deserve punishment for their grave mistakes, so they received two years sentence.
But the case with planned murders is different. How could we let the people who made plans to kill other to roam on the streets? These are not like scammers and robbers who are dangerous to society so should be kept out of society i.e prison, which serves punishment to them and give time to them to think over what they have done, and give rest to society from them for a while.One job of punishment is to scare others not to do the crime, and what could scare people more than death?
In Rajiv Gandhi murder case, already the death penalty of Nalini was reduced to lifesentence, and now there is a resolution asking president of india to consider the death penalty to others once again.
In this context I would like quote the tweet of Omar abdullah last night "If J&K assembly had passed a resolution similar to the Tamil Nadu one for Afzal Guru would the reaction have been as muted? I think not."
One of the argument against death penalty is in the style of arundhati roy i.e death sentence is based on eye-for-an-eye principle, which is inhumane, uncivilized, un-tv-like etc etc. Their argument is, death penalty is just another name to murder, because in both the cases taking some ones life is involved. Its like saying there is no difference between rape and making love, because in both the cases sex is involved !
Punishment is not just hurting someone for joy or revenge, it sends a warning signal to others besides teaching the guilty a lesson. A punishment is not given only considering the graveness of crime, but also considering the motivation which caused it. Manu sharma was given lifeterm in jessica lal case, because he killed her on spur of the moment, it was impulsive, he had no intention to kill her before, but he knew he was killing her while killing her. In bhopal disaster, those seven employees and chairman dont even know that their mistakes are going to kill thousands. They didn't plan to kill them, they dont know that they are killing them, but their mistakes lead to heavy human loss, they deserve punishment for their grave mistakes, so they received two years sentence.
But the case with planned murders is different. How could we let the people who made plans to kill other to roam on the streets? These are not like scammers and robbers who are dangerous to society so should be kept out of society i.e prison, which serves punishment to them and give time to them to think over what they have done, and give rest to society from them for a while.One job of punishment is to scare others not to do the crime, and what could scare people more than death?
In Rajiv Gandhi murder case, already the death penalty of Nalini was reduced to lifesentence, and now there is a resolution asking president of india to consider the death penalty to others once again.
In this context I would like quote the tweet of Omar abdullah last night "If J&K assembly had passed a resolution similar to the Tamil Nadu one for Afzal Guru would the reaction have been as muted? I think not."
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