Ajmal Kasab’s execution is not an occasion to celebrate. Thestate taking a life, howsoever heinous and ‘rarest of the rare’ the nature ofthe crime may be, is not something to cheer about, especially when it comes toa foot soldier on a suicidal and ‘jehadi’ mission. Kasab was about 18 when hewent astray and fell into the hands of religious extremists and their backersin the establishment across the border “ the real perpetrators of the Mumbaiattack of 2008. At the time of the attack, Kasab was 21 and his nineaccomplices who were killed during the attack were youngsters too. SandipanDeb, former editor of Open magazine, rightly commented on twitter: “Kasab’shanging: death of an ignorant foot soldier. Kasab lived and died a pawn.”
It is a moment to reflect. Are we any closer to punishingthe real culprits of the Mumbai attack that took more than 160 lives andinjured double that number of innocents? Or to eliminating the threat fromthem? If the answer is yes, only then can we speak of a “victory”, as specialpublic prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam claimed after the news of Kasab’s hanging broke.
Nevertheless, by carrying out the execution, India has madea statement, to both its domestic and international audience. Ever sinceKasab’s review petition was rejected by the highest court, the Congress-ledgovernment had to face taunts for being soft on terror and terrorists. For thepast six years, the mercy petition of Afzal Guru, who was sentenced to deathfor the ghastly attack on the parliament house in 2001, has been pending, eventhough the last president went on an overdrive, commuting death sentences of 35convicts towards the end of her term. In deciding Kasab’s mercy petition, thelast one to be forwarded, the present president may have jumped the queue byignoring similar petitions of 16 convicts pending for a longer period, but thatis a minor aside.
India has also demonstrated that it can act swiftly anddecisively against terrorism even while honouring its commitment to a fair andindependent judicial process. Kasab had adequate opportunity to defend himselfthough the courts of law at various levels, before his death sentence wasconfirmed by the highest one, the Supreme Court. Thereafter, he was allowed toexhaust his options of seeking a review and plead for mercy before thepresident. India’s resolve was at display at the UN general assembly too when,on November 19, it voted against the resolution seeking abolition of deathsentence. India took a stand that every nation had the “sovereign right” todetermine its own legal system. So long as death sentence is part of ourjudicial system, there can’t be any room to be ambivalent. And by burying Kasabinside the Yerawada jail, and not in a place accessible to the general public,the possibility of the burial turning into some kind of a rallying point laterhas been nixed.
At the end of it, Kasab’s execution is quite ironical.Pakistan, the country for which he claimed to fight for by attacking Mumbai,refused to recognise him as its citizen for long. And when Indian mission inIslamabad went to inform the Pakistani government about the imminent hanging ofKasab, the latter refused to take the letter. Finally, as Union Home Minister,Sushil Kumar Shinde said, the message had to be sent through “fax”.
Ironical also the way Kasab met his end. As a tweeplecommented, “In the end, sounds a bit ironical: hanging a man on a suicidemission.”
in association with Governance Now
