Why India needs to start killing terrorists, stop talking sweet

Let us admit this: India is susceptible to terrorism from both within and across her borders. We continue to take a soft stand against terrorism, and we limit our reactions after a terrorist attack to just words, and not actions. Even after the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 delivered a huge blow to our pride and laid bare the Achilles heel of our police forces, we continue to take a cavalier attitude to terrorist threats. Our stolidity has made the terrorists see us as a very soft target.

Terrorists attacked Gurdaspur in Punjab very recently and the sorry pictures of our policemen fighting them like raw recruits gave more food for thought about our security measures. Most recently, terrorists attacked our soldiers at Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir. The number of posthumous Ashoka Chakra awardees from the Jammu & Kashmir sectors alone is enough to open the eyes of our sleeping government. This time though, we could collar one terrorist - dubbed Kasab 2.0 - with adequate help from the local people.

One can imagine how the rest of the story will pan out. It will take several months before a charge sheet is filed against Mohammed Naved aka Usman, the new guest from across the border. Pakistan will continue to deny any knowledge of the militants. Top advocates of the country will line up behind the terrorist in their attempt to argue the Naved versus Bharat Mata case. That will go on for several years. Naved will crave more Hyderabadi dum biryani and will look smarter than Salman Khan. Somewhere in this process, a high court or the Supreme Court will award a death sentence to him.

A spate of petitions will surge in and human rights activists will join the party at the right time. Charges will also be filed against the poor villagers of Udhampur who helped in nicking the terrorist. They will argue that Naved "surrendered" because of his own strong moral conviction and that he helped in identifying the masterminds of the attack. The advocates of the terrorist will want his death sentence commuted. After several more years, the Supreme Court will uphold its judgment. Then the terrorist will, with the help of his maternal or paternal uncle, file a series of mercy pleas to the president. Since the Constitution wants the president to take actions on mercy petitions with inputs from the council of ministers, the opposition and "secular" Muslim organisations will argue that the charges are imposed on the terrorist because of his religion. Although Naved reportedly said that he came here to kill Hindus, the validity of that statement will be questioned in the Supreme Court in an unusual late night sitting.

My intuitive feeling is that, at the end of this circus, Naved will still get his life back. We saw how some people tried to predispose the Supreme Court to put the life of Yakub Memon above that of the 257 people he conspired to kill. Naved, with the help of his friend, killed 255 less. So naturally, the case will be in his favour. Killing just two people will not be any fashionable in five years from now, and will not constitute a "rarest of rare" case by any yardstick of imagination. And letters written by Raman, Lakshman, or Vibhishan will be concocted by secularists to explain why Naved should not be hanged but honoured with a Padma. They will argue that capital punishment is even unheard of in countries like Niue, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu.

So in all likelihood, by "surrendering" to the villagers and the Indian forces, Naved has done the right thing to secure his life. He does not need an enrolment for the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana, the public provident fund, or the national pension scheme to live a peaceful life in India and die of old age half a century later. By that time, newly recruits - the Naved 2.0s and the Kasab 3.0s - will have already visited India and filled our jails. But we will take strong actions; we will not play any cricket with Pakistan for another three years, and Virat Kohli will be warned not to let out expletives even in passing against them. The circus will go on and on and on.

Isn't it all like watching the same film again and again? On a serious note, what is the security we offer to the lives of the people in the areas under threat? The politicians do not want to worry about it as long as they have the sharpest and the toughest in the country protecting them. People like Naved who come from across the border uninvited, are not humans but criminally programmed humanoids. Such people cannot be corrected. On one day, they attack the Indians, and on a different day, they attack their own citizens. We don't stand to gain anything by correcting them. Attempting to correct them in itself is worthless, as our good neighbour is busy formatting and programming more fresh brain-disks everyday. Even those who vouch for the abolition of capital punishment should note that in several abolitionist countries, capital punishment is awarded for an act of terrorism.

India is attempting to combat the hardest with the softest. We need the strongest possible punishments for all acts of terrorism. Without a coordinated network of police, armed forces, and the intelligence, there is no point thumbing back your archived intelligence dossiers and claim, in hindsight, that you had received warnings and alerts. Naved said he came over to have fun shooting down people. These are not the kind of people whom you should offer your other cheek after taking a slap on one. It is imperative that we must beef up the security on our borders; and when I say "beef up", I can only wish that the government will not get the wrong end of the stick.