Kasab- a perspective

Contributed by Om Pashpupati

3rd May 2010 proved to be a day of vindication of justice. It was a befitting tribute to the sacrifices of our intrepid, indefatigable police officers who, in due course of discharging their duties towards the nation, did not hesitate to tread the path which ended in their mortalization. This day also commemorated the lives of hundreds of national and international innocent residents who had been utterly unfortunate to be present at the sites which witnessed a very dastardly attack which in all proportions was horrific and unprecedented in its repercussions.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone survivor apprehended of the 10 gunmen who attacked the financial hub of the nation on 26th Nov 2008, was convicted of waging a war against India and several other charges. Unlike the secrecy of trials conducted in Pakistan, the trial was conducted in a fair and open manner and world could see the most populous democracy adhering to the rudiments of a democratic process and no shades of exasperation or furiousness was manifested. This is besides the fact that Kasab’s case was virtually untenable .Also; it was disingenuous to expect the Special Court to accept allegations as facts vis-a-vis the 2 indians. The Court rightly exonerated them owing to lack of any credible corroborative evidence and thus accentuated the position of Indian Judiciary as a dispassionate institution. So far so Good..!!!

Unfortunately, there are a few flip sides to this.

‘Inevitability’ cited as the reason for long length of the trial does little to allay the misgivings about the pace of delivering justice in India. It speaks volumes about the swiftness embraced by the judiciary when a common man seeks justice .No wonder, the judiciary does not inspire confidence to any appreciable degree from the proletariat or the bourgeois. In all probability, Kasab is likely to be handed a death sentence. He will appeal against the verdict and his case will be dragged through the glutinous layer of the judiciary, which implicitly give him a reprieve. It is sad that any criminal of the like of Kasab who showed a flagrant disregard for the law and human lives will be the safest moron in India for 1 or 2 or 3 or 4...more years. This will definitely not be the correct way to commiserate with the relatives of those who lost their lives in those 65 gory hours. It is high time we learnt lesson from Afzal case (convicted and sentenced in the case of Attack on Parliament) in which the nation is still to hear the verdict on his appeal for clemency from the president.

This judgement is a part of the solution. This can be construed as just one small step in the direction of peace .Kasab is a mere pawn in the army whose king is still unchecked and has a substantive role in calling the shots for our western neighbour. The lifeline of the king happens to be the ideology of hatred and belligerence fostered among our erstwhile brethren by a few extremists .This has humungous potential to produce myriads of Kasabs. This section of extremists finds their job made easy when the 2 culturally-knitted nations, which have now turned bête- noires for one another, stall the dialogue and thus the peace process. The schizophrenic power structure of our western neighbour has to be engaged so that it acts against the terror outfits operating from its soil and executing violent attacks on India.

We must not condone such attacks. We must bring the perpetrators caught to books. But concomitantly, we must resolutely tread the path to enduring peace. This can only be made possible when the minority groups on both sides of the border are allowed to prosper and live in harmony. Unless the ideology of belligerence is defeated, this verdict will languish in irrelevance.