I was too young to know about it when Auto Shankar was hanged. The capital punishment being implemented in India, when I was old enough to know about it was Dhananjoy Chatterjee's execution.
His crime was proven, yet people backed the "son of their soil" as a community. They agreed that his crime was heinous indeed, yet protested against the capital punishment. I guess Gandhiji has made protesting so fashionable, that many used the platform to propel their careers as self-proclaimed human-rights-activists (which for some reason helps protect the rights of only media-popular cases).
Just as Dhananjoy Chatterjee case came up, we read about an incident in Shivaji's life as a part our school curriculum. An influential "Patil" (a post analogous to sheriff of a small village) had raped a poor woman. This "Patil" was the head of the village, on top of that, he was a kin of Shivaji, and therefore, he assumed that he was above law. The victim's helpless father turned to Shivaji. Shivaji ordered that the Patil be arrested and brought in court. He was tried in court, and Shivaji ordered that the Patil's hands be chopped off. I want to point out 3 major points which are relevant today too.
1. The incident dates to 1600 AD, there was no DNA testing, no chemical analysis of circumstantial evidence.A crime of such a nature has no witnesses.
(Just because details of a classified trial are not revealed to general public, it doesnt mean trial wasnt fair.)
2. Just because the Patil was a politician's kin (or belonged to same state), he was not above law.
3rd is what Shivaji said to his courtiers.. he said that he has to be strict and the punishment has to be so severe that in future no one should dare do a similar crime.
10 years after Dhananjoy, human rights activists have found another case to bleat around the media bush. What pains me is that a man who was studying to be a doctor to save lives was so brainwashed that he did the opposite. What pains me the most is that politicians are using his stalled walk to gallows to instigate people going astray.
His crime was proven, yet people backed the "son of their soil" as a community. They agreed that his crime was heinous indeed, yet protested against the capital punishment. I guess Gandhiji has made protesting so fashionable, that many used the platform to propel their careers as self-proclaimed human-rights-activists (which for some reason helps protect the rights of only media-popular cases).
Just as Dhananjoy Chatterjee case came up, we read about an incident in Shivaji's life as a part our school curriculum. An influential "Patil" (a post analogous to sheriff of a small village) had raped a poor woman. This "Patil" was the head of the village, on top of that, he was a kin of Shivaji, and therefore, he assumed that he was above law. The victim's helpless father turned to Shivaji. Shivaji ordered that the Patil be arrested and brought in court. He was tried in court, and Shivaji ordered that the Patil's hands be chopped off. I want to point out 3 major points which are relevant today too.
1. The incident dates to 1600 AD, there was no DNA testing, no chemical analysis of circumstantial evidence.A crime of such a nature has no witnesses.
(Just because details of a classified trial are not revealed to general public, it doesnt mean trial wasnt fair.)
2. Just because the Patil was a politician's kin (or belonged to same state), he was not above law.
3rd is what Shivaji said to his courtiers.. he said that he has to be strict and the punishment has to be so severe that in future no one should dare do a similar crime.
10 years after Dhananjoy, human rights activists have found another case to bleat around the media bush. What pains me is that a man who was studying to be a doctor to save lives was so brainwashed that he did the opposite. What pains me the most is that politicians are using his stalled walk to gallows to instigate people going astray.
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