Another man goes to the gallows to satisfy the collective conscience of a nation
Muneer Dar
Three stories, three persons and the same verdict that is “to be hanged until death”. Such an irony happened with the fate of people like Maqbool Bhat, Afzal Guru, and now Yaqub Memon.
After a lot of discussions and debates rammed into the electronic and print media for some days “whether to execute Memon or not” in order to satisfy the so called collective conscience of the people, the buck finally stopped on 30th July when Yaqub Memon was sent to the gallows.
Many argue that justice had been denied in all the three cases and even a renowned human rights activist lambasted government openly saying “in Afzal Guru Case, no mercy petition was sent for consideration to the president at that time”. Such is the travesty of justice delivery system in this part of the world. Sending one to the gallows is not a herculean task but providing a real legal cover, fair judicial process and a good hope in the judicial proceedings is the most challenging and real job
It is good that national interests should be upheld but not at the cost of innocent people. It has been rightly said by Napoleon Bonaparte, “The world suffers a lot not because of the violence of bad people but because of the silence of the good people.” Hanging Yaqub Memon and leaving the other real perpetrators aside is not a good justification of upholding the national interest and giving a good impression to the people that the law has taken its own course. In fact, it is not the victory of justice delivery system but a defeat to the so called collective conscience of the people. Maqbool, Afzal and now Yaqub, all the trio fell to the same theory of collective conscience.
What an irony is that the Memon’s case was given huge media publicity as there were a lot of political discourses on that issue. Freedom of expression was put on hold in this case. When Bbollywood star Salman Khan came into the rescue of Yaqub by writing in his twitter handle “hang Tiger Memon not Yaqub”, he was abruptly labeled as anti- national, secessionist and whatever by the right wing Hindu nationalist forces. Even the posters of his recent blockbuster Bharangi Bhaijaan were torn a part by Shiv Sena members in Maharashtra. Where is the democratic sense of the people gone when they behave like this? Markandey Katju, the former Supreme Court judge and Press council of India chief while updating his status on face book reading “Justice had been denied in Yaqub Memon’s case. But I will speak the truth because truth has a great power”, also felt the same wrath from the ill minded persons.
It was heart wrenching to see the comments made by a Mumbai blast victim on one of the prime Indian channels by openly lamenting that justice had been delayed in their case and the hanging of the Yaqub Memon should have been done quite some years ago but I want to ask to the 1993 Mumbai blast victims, if justice had been really delayed in your case then what about Gujarat riots, Malegaon Blasts, where people from far right are involved?
Not a single person had been given the exemplary punishment. In these cases justice had not only been delayed but also denied as well. Delay is on part of the government who at times fail to book the real culprits to justice. We Kashmiris being victims of the same terror empathize with the victims of Mumbai blast but let there be no prejudice while administering justice.
Lastly when there could be a stay on Devinder pal Singh Bhullar’s death penalty, the main accused in the former Punjab CM, Beant Singh’s assassination and the conspirators of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case then why not on Afzal Guru and Yaqub Memon’s case? Is it that they are Muslims or something else? In fact, crime is crime, how much intense in magnitude it is.
(Muneer Dar pursues Post Graduation from MERC Kashmir University)
muneerdar40@gmail.com