Das Capital

Lot of gigabytes and sound-bytes and reams of paper are getting spent on the recent capital punishments given to two people charged and proven in the law courts for organizing terror in this country. The mercy petitions were rejected by the President , thus triggering the executions.

As if by trigger, immediately parallel debates have opened up on the media on the need to have capital punishment in this country and counter-arguments of the need to abolish it and convert same to life imprisonment.

Let me make it very clear that my knowledge of law is similar to an Eskimos knowledge on habitats of camels on the Sahara desert. However my memory is sharp. And I would not like to have two things to happen. One, I would not like my income tax to be spent on feeding terrorists in jail. Instead I would like that to go feeding the poor and unfortunate. (It is perhaps another matter that the same too does not happen due to the lackadaisical nature of our government). Secondly I would not like innocent Rupin Katyals to lay down their lives in hands of some more terrorists so that a few more can be freed from our jails.

Strange that it may sound , taking another human life may not be exactly civilized even if it is for the execution of a hardened criminal. But we have to also remember that even if it means being crippled for life, a surgeon amputates a limb infected with gangrene and does not apply antiseptic on it instead.