Thursday, March 25, 2010

Capital Punishment



Yesterday as I was browsing www.timesofindia.com, my eyes fell on the news item which said that a 12 year old was raped by around six seven people for over two years, aged between 24 and hold your breath 71!!. My initial reaction was of shock and disbelief. I was both angry and sad. Angry at those insane animals and sad at the plight of that poor girl. Calling those people animals would be an insult to animals as even animals don’t mate if the female is unwilling. Now the question that arises is whether the character of some people has plummeted even below the degree of say a dog or a donkey?

Rape according to me is the most heinous crime prevalent in the society followed by murder. In murder, the judiciary questions the motive and several other instances are taken into account and sometimes even the actual guilty will walk away scot free if he happens to be very influential, as it happened in the Jessica Lal murder case.
But in rape, what could be any motive other than lust and in some cases revenge. Both the motives cannot be justified under any constitution of any country. In a country like India, the cases of rape have increased exponentially and these rapists have been successful in arm twisting the loopholes in our judiciary to their advantage. This pops up the question as to how the cases of rape and murder should be dealt with.

Just imagine the plight of the girl who was repeatedly used like an object by those thugs. Not only her physique but also her soul might have been equally scarred. A little light into that girl’s life tells us that her parents had divorced and married separate partners and left the minor girl to fend for herself. In such a scenario, even her parents are equally responsible for her plight.

The big question which now comes up is that how such heinous crimes should be dealt with? Going by the speed of our judiciary, she may or may not get justice even if she has attained the age of 80. Till that time she would have lost everything in her life and if she is strong enough she might strive to stay afloat in the hypocritical society which would taunt her and make her life a living hell.

This brings to my mind the concept of capital punishment. Capital punishment is a law in almost all Arab countries with punishments varying from stoning the offender to death, beheading by the sword or even castrating. It is because of these severe punishments that the crime rate especially rape, is at a nadir in most of the Arab world.

Should capital punishment be made a law in India especially in the rape cases? I see no reason why it should not be. If it is made a law, even a hardened criminal will think twice before outraging the modesty of a woman. If we make the people believe that the only punishment for rape is death, then I think nobody would dare to put their life on the line and commit such a heinous crime.

As far as I remember, there was only one case in which a certain Dhanajay was hanged for having raped a girl. But he was hanged six-seven years after he had committed that crime. Here many people might argue that maybe Dhanajay was not too influential so he could not come out of it. But if it would have been some influential person, seven years was enough time to arm twist the case and walk away scot free. Seven years is enough time to intimidate the victim or even a witness to turn hostile as it happens in many cases. Is this the kind of justice we are looking at?

The only deterrent I foresee which could act as a hindrance in capital punishment becoming a law is the hue and cry which would be raised by the numerous pseudo human rights activists around the country. All they look out for is cheap publicity. In the process they try to kill the very objective of capital punishment becoming a law.
I agree that every individual has a right to live and reform himself, but consider the plight of the victim who is raped. For her the very purpose of life is defeated. Even if her rapist transforms himself (which I doubt he will), the girl’s life has changed forever.

The other argument that arises is that how would the girl’s life change if her rapist is killed. My counter argument is that if it is made a law then the rate of rapes would itself decrease as nobody would like to risk their life for anything.
Thanks to the latest technology like DNA testing it is very easy to establish rape and the person who has committed it. If the DNA samples match, then he should be hanged or whatever. The entire process should be speeded up because justice delayed is justice denied. The only time taking process would be catching hold of the criminal in the first place and believing the fact that the police of our country are becoming efficient day by day, then they would be adroit enough to apprehend the criminal quickly.

After implementing capital punishment in rape, it can be extended even to murders which are done without any motives. But that is altogether a separate story. I just hope that the powers concerned are empathic enough to consider the sufferings of the girls who fall prey to this heinous crime of rape and make capital punishment as the only form of justice for rape. This would send shivers down the spines of people who carry out such heinous crimes and it would make the woman feel safer in their own homeland – India.

Women are to be treated with respect. People should realize that every woman is either a daughter or a sister or a mother or a wife. Despite all the reservations and other things, women in India are still looked down upon in the male dominated society. People should not forget that women are at par with men in almost all walks of life. For every Sachin Tendulker, there is a PT Usha, for every Abdul Kalam, there is a Kalpana Chawla and for every Shah Rukh Khan, there is a Madhuri Dixit!!!

8 comments:

sujeet said...

women ,thy name is frailty ....
women are fragile, men make ther destiny these are the words of graet men who fought for the emancipation of women .....
rest lust is an evil and sometimes cant be controllable
and no of satans are increasing day bya day
all are relative to each other
a good analysis of the topic ahmes bhai
a
par aurat par shorat ki barish uska mard hi karta hai
regarding capital punishment and rape the judge would also be relative
as rape of a minor is more heinous than others
but in my opinion it is a temperory solution to a permanent problem existing in the society some culture or belief need to be developed to get rid of this

yamini said...

I totally agree with you Ahmed on this topic..Very few cases of rape come into the light and those few cases are so much in number as well..
Capital punishment is what i have thought of many times as the punishment in such cases too..but then if a woman accuses a man of molesting her which rarely happens but happens...wont it be too inhumane to give such an extreme treatment to an innocent person???

yamini said...

@Sujeet--i didnt understand what do u wanna say by- AURAT PAR SHORAT KI BARISH USKA MARD HI KARTA HAI???

sam_maxbladerunner said...

Ahmed bhai...i agree with u on many counts but i want 2 suggest sthng if u dnt mind...
1) one shd be careful in making sch cmnts lest we may cross d fine line b/w being a critic and a cynic...Hw cn u say dt influential ppl walk away...it dsn't augur well...n esp cmng frm sm1 who is a post-grad...it z gd dt u feel fr ppl...bt u cnt imply dt judiciary has broken down...in fact, we shd be happy dt a vibrant judiciary wch can check d legislative whn it violates d constitution.,.
2) Jessica Lal murder case mein sazaa ho chuki hai...no body walked away scot free...u cnt distort facts...
there are sme gd points too though.

Unknown said...

hey dude nice work,a thought provoking post..looking fwd for sum more post wich tuches the hidden side of our so called socialized society

Mohammed M.M. Ahmed said...

@ Sonal: the accused in jessica lal case once arrested after there was a huge public outcry.........before that he had managed to dwindle the facts and evidences

Anonymous said...

Nice one Ahmed, thought provoking. Anyone doing such heinous crime should be hanged, nothing else. There should be no half measures for these things.

Rakesh Bharti

sam_maxbladerunner said...

'Influential' people always try to influence the investigation...be it India or anywhere else...
secondly in the post you have mentioned JL case as if that was the end..Judiciary has its own set of problem...it can't dole out punishment based on media reports...

Justice has to be served but equally important is that no innocent gets the stick...

I quite like the fact that people of our generation are aware of their responsibility...this blog of yours is a fine example in this regard...

What i intend to say is that we the citizens of India should not be cynical of the machinery...being a critic is fine...