-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- View From The Outer Harbour
By: Thalmann Pradeep Pereira A LITTLE BIT OF MONICA . . . A few months ago when a rape-cum-murder offender in West Bengal was finally ordered to be hanged after repeated failed attempts at getting a pardon, it sparked off a lively debate about the efficacy and humanity of the death penalty. Prominent personalities took positions for and against. The opponents of the death penalty pointed out to its inhuman, vengeful nature and opined that a Life Imprisonment would be a more suitable punishment. As if to echo this strand of thought, the Supreme Court passed a few judgements holding that Life Imprisonment really meant Rigorous (Hard Labour) Imprisonment for the entire lifetime of the convict. On the other hand, amongst the supporters of the death penalty, there is a debate about the best ("humane") method to be adopted in place of the noose, with various alternatives like the electric chair, the lethal injection and the gas chamber being weighed in the scales. Recently, we had the horrifying bomb blasts in Delhi, in which innocent people who were doing shopping on the eve of Diwali and Ramzan Id lost their lives. Such bomb blasts in Delhi or elsewhere were not happening for the first time. Only this time around, there was a quietly expressed national resolve to counter such terrorist acts resolutely. This resolve itself has given rise to an intense debate about the best method of dealing with terrorism (and terrorists). A few days earlier, President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had expressed his personal views against the death penalty. So, after the Delhi bomb blasts, the death penalty debate took a more interesting turn. Justice R.C. Lahoti who had just retired as the Chief Justice of India publicly asked whether anything less than the death penalty would be deserved by the perpetrators of the Delhi bomb blasts, as and when they are caught. Two days later the new CJI Mr. Justice Y.K. Sabharwal expressed his personal reservations against the death penalty, but hastened to add that the constitutional validity of the death penalty in the "rarest of rare" cases has been judicially upheld with proper guidelines being laid down. Moreover, he added that in India death sentence once awarded by a Sessions Court has to be mandatorily first confirmed by the High Court, with the invariable second appeal to the Supreme Court itself. He also rightly said that the issue of the abolition of the death penalty is for the Parliament to decide, not for the Judiciary, and that in spite of his personal views against the death penalty, he would not hesitate to award it in a case falling into the "rarest-of-rare" category. And then Abu Salem and his wife Monica Bedi were finally extradited to India from Portugal. Proud boasts from certain official quarters were also heard that very soon Dawood Ibrahim would also be similarly extradited and that thereupon terrorism in India would stand totally smashed. Now, compared to this type of thinking, even a small cup of tea could be classified as being "deeper". The really interesting piece of events, however, took place in the Special Anti-Terrorist Court in Mumbai, where Abu Salem was produced by the CBI. The Judge was off-hand orally told that Abu Salem was allowed to be extradited to India by Portugal on the express condition that he would not be awarded the death penalty and further that even if he is awarded the sentence of Life Imprisonment, he would not be incarcerated for more than 25 years. The Judge was prompted to ask whether appearance of an accused before an Indian Court could be conditional. The Bajrang Dal activists in Mumbai promptly held a very impressive and noisy demonstration demanding that the death penalty be awarded to Abu Salem. Truly a Hindu Nationalist outfit! The only rub was that the Portuguese conditions about Abu Salem's extradition had been accepted by the Home Ministry of India when the Hindu Nationalist "Loh-Purush" (Steel-Man) Mr. Lal Krishna Advani was the Home Minister of India. And not just ordinarily accepted, but accepted with Sovereign Guarantees and the Highest Diplomatic Assurances. Now try pulling a fast one over the Portuguese Government! The very specific crime, for which Abu Salem was notified to the Government of Portugal as being a wanted man in India, was the 1993 Bombay Serial Bomb Blasts. Advani was fully aware of this crime which is to be tried in a Special Anti-Terrorist Court with special rules of evidence and which can easily attract the death penalty. But the other side of the coin is also even more interesting. Advani's Abu Salem Pact with the Portuguese Government was signed in those gung-ho days when George W. Bush's America was waging an International War on Terrorism by maiming or killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq by their "Shock-and-Awe" tactics. The dastardly criminal attack on the World Trade Centre indeed had the entire American Public baying for the blood, first of Osama Bin Laden and then of Saddam Hussein. Never mind that both these gentlemen still have all their blood safely running through their respective veins even today! But who were the faithful and ardent supporters of President Bush in this War on Terrorism? The list reads as: the U.K., Spain and (no need to hold your breath) Portugal! Obviously for the then Portuguese Government the life of Abu Salem, a proclaimed absconding offender, was more dear then the lives of the "collateral damage" victims in Afghanistan and Iraq. And obviously for the then Portuguese Government, the lawlessness of the Guantanamo Bay facility (where hundreds of innocent civilians captured in Afghanistan are still held in degrading conditions) or, for that matter the lawlessness of the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq (where ordinary U.S. soldiers are supposed to have carried out human rights violations on their own "just for kicks") was more preferable than the law-governed court hall of the Special Anti-Terrorist Court in Mumbai. One can only pity poor Mr. L. K. Advani and his "stainless steel" nationalist thinking. But in the meanwhile, every Terrorist in India has already digested the Lessons of the Advani Pact: "If you want to commit a terrorist act in India against innocent Indians doing their Diwali or Id or Christmas shopping, go right ahead; but do ensure that you escape to Portugal, so that even if you are eventually caught, you will not get the death penalty but a maximum of 25 years in jail. For, rest assured, the Sovereign Guarantees and Highest Diplomatic Assurances will definitely be implemented in the form of an Executive Pardon at the end of the day." Till the next Monday, then, Happy Thinking! [EMAIL PROTECTED] “Harbour Times” (21-11-2005)