I/III. http://www.dailyo.in/politics/yakub-memon-93-mumbai-blast-bombay-riots-muslims/story/1/5376.html
How some terrorists get hanged in India, others get state funerals Rajdeep Sardesai who covered the 1992-'93 riots poses some tough questions. 31-07-2015 RAJDEEP SARDESAI @sardesairajdeep [Video] Also read. Long before 2002 Gujarat, there was Mumbai 1992-93. In the historiography of riots, we sometimes forget Mumbai's bloody days. I cannot. As a young journalist and proud Mumbaikar, it was one of the most traumatic periods in my personal and professional life. To watch the city I had grown up in being torn apart by communal hatred was gut-wrenching. For weeks I scoured the streets, reporting on the violence for the Times of India, exposing the role of the Shiv Sena, the underworld, police and the state government (yes, the effete Congress government). We didn't have a television camera to capture the stories in images for posterity, but we did write fearlessly and often on a city divided by religion, its cosmopolitan spirit buried under the debris of bigotry (the writings were later compiled into a book When Bombay Burned, UBS publishers 1993 and the evidence was part of the Srikrishna report on the riots). But nothing could have prepared us for March 12, 1993, arguably the most difficult reporting day in my life. We didn't know of bombs, terror, RDX: this was Mumbai folks, the bindaas city of black-and-white taxis, Bollywood dreams, cricket on the maidans. Bombs were meant for far off lands, not for aamchi Mumbai. And yet, in the space of a few hours, 257 people were killed in the serial blasts, leaving a city wounded and haunted forever. Weeks later, the conspiracy would unravel: how underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the Memon family and others had been used by Pakistan's ISI network to foment trouble. It was a terror attack that was projected as "revenge" for the post Babri demolition riots: almost everyone involved was a Muslim. II/III. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/the-hindus-view-on-yakub-memon-verdict/article7477992.ece Updated: July 30, 2015 04:43 IST EDITORIAL Inhuman and unconscionable Judicial finality need not necessarily mean that India should hang Yakub Memon. Even in this situation, as his life hangs on the slender thread of a fresh mercy plea to the President, is the irreversible and inhuman sentence of death the only recourse for a democratic government? Carrying out the sentence will only have the appearance of a justice that is retributive and vengeful, not substantial or morally different from the very offence that gave rise to the proceedings. In recent times, we saw the horrific judicial murder of Afzal Guru, who was hanged in secret without a final opportunity for his family to meet him, marking an unprecedented abandonment of morality on the part of the state. It was only in apparent cognisance of this that the Supreme Court ruled early last year that a formal communication to the convict and his family, intimation to the local legal aid centre and a clear gap of 14 days between the communication and the execution were necessary. Further, there are bound to be questions each time someone is hanged or spared. Even in the Mumbai blasts case, the 10 men sentenced to death by the trial court for planting the explosives were given only life terms by the Supreme Court on appeal, while Yakub Memon alone was awarded the death penalty. Such distinctions may seem arbitrary to the layman. As also, the revelation that the Memon family may have been induced to return to India will cast a shadow on the legitimacy of hanging a man who cooperated with Indian agencies. ***The debate on the need and desirability of retaining the death penalty has been overshadowed by much intellectual exertion on the nature of the crime involved, its gravity, its heinousness and the fatalities it caused. The time has come to end this debate once and for all by ascending to a moral position that there shall be no death penalty on the statute book, regardless of the heinousness of the offence, the circumstances or the number of fatalities involved*** [emphasis added]. Anyone following closely the evolution of the law on death sentences and the clemency jurisdiction in India will understand that the Supreme Court is making it more and more difficult for the executive to carry out death sentences. It has evolved a jurisprudence that limits capital punishment to the ‘rarest of rare cases’, allowed a post-appeal review as well as a curative petition, and made decisions on appeals for mercy justiciable. It has laid down a cast-iron rule against undue delay in disposing of such mercy pleas, and it has humanised the process by repeatedly intervening in favour of condemned prisoners, often at the very last minute. A truly lasting solution to the moral dilemma that each instance of capital punishment poses will be to abolish it altogether and replace it with a sentence of imprisonment for the rest of the convict’s life. The quality of mercy is not strained. The President, under Article 72 of the Constitution, has the power to grant pardon, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences. To not exercise this expansive power in the service of mercy would be inhuman and unconscionable. III. http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2015/07/31/yakub-memon-was-judicially-garroted-so-grave-doubts-remain OPINION Yakub Memon Was Judicially Garroted, So Grave Doubts Remain Saurav Datta Yesterday, 1:29 pm The judges in Yakub Memon’s case held that the death warrant issued by the TADA court on April 30 suffered from no legal infirmity. Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers celebrate Yakub Memon’s hanging in Allahabad, July 30, 2015. (Photo: PTI) Snapshot Unprecedented Hearing “Unprecedented” seems to be the commonly used word to describe and praise Supreme Court’s judgment on Yakub Memon It was an unprecedented court gathering called upon by CJI HL Dattu in Courtroom 4 of the Supreme Court Attorney General taking umbrage at Yakub Memon’s pleas accused Yakub of playing “a game to delay the hanging” Court also sided with Rohatgi adding that Yakub should have started making all final arrangements after May itself By choosing speed over due process, the Supreme Court has given short shrift to justice. “Unprecedented”, right now, is the most commonly used term to describe and praise the Supreme Court’s swift and determined actions to bring Yakub Memon to justice (or whatever it means to myriad hawks, doves and vultures). A clarification here – it isn’t the first time that the Chief Justice of India has heard the pleas of a man whose execution was imminent – a matter of only a few hours. On September 8, 2014, a bench was hastily convened at 1.30 am, after Senior Advocate Indira Jaising rushed to Justice H L Dattu’s residence and urged him and Justice Anil Dave to stay Surinder Koli’s hanging, scheduled at 5.30 am. The court granted her plea. The “unprecedented” in today’s event is CJI Dattu’s decision to constitute a three-judge bench and have a ‘proper’ hearing in Courtroom 4 of the Supreme Court. Probably because of the judiciary’s burning desire to show Yakub the law’s so-called majesty before sealing his fate. Another “unprecedented” event – the court’s tearing hurry to hear and decide the final pleas in the wee hours of dawn, for a reason which, in the light of what subsequently unfolded, appear as quite perverse. (Photo: PTI) (Photo: PTI) Lethal Oversight, Or Worse? The humdinger began in the evening, when the court held that there was nothing wrong in the way in which Yakub’s curative petition was heard and dismissed. Justice Deepak Misra, who wrote the judgment for himself and Justices P C Pant and Amitava Roy, also held that the death warrant issued by the TADA court on April 30 suffered from no legal infirmity. No death warrant can be issued till a convict has exhausted all legal remedies. Yakub filed a curative petition on May 22, and on May 26, he was informed of the president’s rejection of his mercy plea. The warrant was served on him on July 13, and the court dismissed the petition on July 27. So how did the court conclude that the warrant was flawless? ***Legal remedies are exhausted not when a petition is filed, but when it is dismissed. Did the court mean and expect that Yakub should have apprehended, nay, known, that his petition wouldn’t stand a chance? And if this was indeed the expectation, forget about the public’s faith, what does it say about the court’s belief in its own impartiality?*** [Emphasis added.] After both the Maharashtra governor and the president rejected Yakub’s mercy pleas in a disconcertingly quick succession, his lawyers knocked on the Supreme Court’s doors with a couple of modest prayers. One, that the mercy petitions, dismissed in undue haste, be reviewed lest he suffers irreparable injustice at the hands of the State. Two, that the warrant be stayed for 14 days from the date of his being served with the information of his mercy pleas’ rejection. This contention was based both on law and the hope of a minimalist humane consideration from the court. Because, after having all doors finally shut upon him, a death row inmate needs and deserves some time to meet his family and loved ones, say the final goodbyes and prepare his will. (Photo: PTI) (Photo: PTI) Pleadings Go Unheard Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, taking extreme umbrage at these pleadings, accused Yakub of playing “a game to delay the hanging” and belligerently attacked his humble request for a few more days to live. The court sided with Rohatgi, adding that Yakub should have started making all final arrangements immediately after his review petition was dismissed in May. He had ample opportunity to do so, and couldn’t be allowed any more. The bench had been impatient and condescending towards him earlier too, when it said that the court which heard his review petition had done him a favour by hearing his case for 10 days, when the ‘stipulated’ time was only 30 minutes. The fact that half-an-hour would be grossly insufficient given the nature of the case, the voluminous evidence and complex arguments must have eluded the judges. This also indicates two things. One, that the court didn’t want him to have a legitimate expectation of getting some relief out of his curative petition. It could also indicate, and quite dangerously, that the court is sending out a message – that curative petitions would hardly succeed because the judges would have made up their minds anyway even before hearing the case. Yakub’s brothers, Suleiman (L) and cousin Usman (R). (Photo: PTI) Yakub’s brothers, Suleiman (L) and cousin Usman (R). (Photo: PTI) Spectacle Of Obscene Haste There are paeans galore in the media and among the people – paeans to the Supreme Court’s nobility and Indian democracy, because the judges deigned to assemble at an ungodly hour and deliver justice. What could have been driving the judges that they set aside everything and embarked upon this heroic task of meeting the July 30, 7.00 am deadline? Why would Justice Misra, heading the bench, insist upon delivering the judgement on July 29 itself? To be fair to the court, since it had upheld the validity of the death warrant, it could well have pulled out all stops to see to it that it is executed (pun, intended). But then there were many questions which were either ignored or remained unanswered, despite being repeatedly raised by Yakub’s lawyers. Could paucity of time be a probable reason? If yes, what prevented the bench from having a “normal” hearing in the morning, like what happens every day, and adequately address all issues? A grim occasion which required sombre and detailed judicial attention was turned into a spectacular show of judicial might. The court held that “not executing the warrant would be a travesty of justice.” Is executing the warrant at a hitherto unprecedented speed not “travesty”? -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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