If at all there is a vote on whether we should have capital punishment or not, I shall vote against it. It's not a deterrent.
But should we apply to those who are the destroyers of our civil life and act as cold blooded brutal slaughterers? Should the law for humans be applied to those who act as inhumans?
And till we have a law that provides for capital punishment, in a rarest of the rare case, and the overwhelming majority seems to be supporting it, should we bend it, violate it, abuse it, communalise it, because a section of influential rich people think they are above the judges and better equipped than the nation's investigative agencies? And should a person, who mercilessly conspired against his own country, planned/helped plan or became privy to such a plan to orchestrate a massacre of his own people, deserve any mercy or support?
Who were the 257 people killed by the Memons? Were they not Indians and did they not have any human rights? Did they not have a family? Those who batted for Yakub forgot that they are sympathising with the conspirators who had no feelings for the 257 Indians. Like butchers of the communal-vote-bazaar, like Taliban of the secular variety, arrogant and blind with the influence they wield, this cartel of hate worked zealously to hurt those who were victims of Mumbai blast.
Mumbai blast was not the first one. It was the nth one since barbarians from across the border looted and burnt our temples, cities and libraries. Our heritage was mocked at, our people were forced to become refugees in their own land, temples were turned into mosques and the so called secular media suggested that one way to resolve the issue is to make toilets at Ram Janmabhumi. They partitioned the country saying they can't live with us, they attacked Kashmir in 1947, sent Kasabs and attacked Parliament.
What's the reason behind their continuous hatred for us? What could have been the reason of hatred in the eyes of Memons for us Indians? What was there that the constitution and the law and the legislature had not provided to them? They are us. Same blood, same ancestry, same geography and a shared history. How can one even think of eliminating hundreds of their own people working at the direction of foreigners?
Yakub Menon was born in a country which would get bruised by him but still would have sprung so many lawyers and activists burning midnight oil to save him from the gallows. Newspapers and media channels turned into unabashed political campaigners for mercy to a conspirator who helped kill 257 Indians and more than a thousand injured. It should not come as a surprise. We love our tormentors and forget our kith and kin.
I tried to see in today's newspapers if anyone has cared to pay homage to the 257 who lost their lives due to the Memons and the Dawoods or any one interviewing their children and family members. But found not a single line for them anywhere. They are simply forgotten. One journalist tweeted, as if rubbing salt on the wounds of the families of those 257, "Yakub is guilty but let's not forget the 900 killed in riots. Justice Sri Krishna linked blasts to riots. Let's be very clear about that."
What does it mean? I have never seen such a blatant justification for the Mumbai blasts. So, is this the reason that those 257 "deserved" to be eliminated? Hence punishing Yakub is not justified? And how many more massacres do we still have to suffer? And what about those half a million uprooted from their homes and 700 temples desecrated? Those 257 could have been saved if Yakub Memon had cared to alert the police, if at all he was innocent as claimed by many of those who spent sleepless nights for him.
Can a people become so obsessed to save a person who has been thoroughly probed by the national investigative agencies and a long, judicial process provided all the channels available to him to defend himself? Can an English speaking chatterati be allowed to judge the judges and claim they have better information than all the country's investigative agencies put together? Can the collective will of a nation be contemptuously sought to be thwarted by a bunch of people using their influence in media and social circles? And are these people transparent in showing their "chivalrous" zeal to those who happen to be "others" and hence more vulnerable to the "secular solidarity" assaults? Can a judicial verdict be challenged and mocked at by an MP as "state-sponsored murder"? Why is so much of love and affection by this Malabar Hill class for Yakub, who has been found guilty to conspire in diabolic mass killings of Indians?
The dishonesty of this so-called secular intellectual class is brazen and shows a deep-rooted hatred for another section of the society, whom they label as Hindu Parivar. In fact, for them the word communal itself is synonymous with the word Hindu and hence the pains of the Kashmiri Hindus never bothered them, the cries of the Hindus being discriminated and raped and killed and abducted, even when they are forced to live as second class citizens in Pakistan and Bangladesh, never bother them. Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Iran certainly appear prominently on their radar for obvious reasons, but not the next door grave violations of the human rights. Their hatred for the Hindu comes to the fore when someone in Nepal demands the constitutional status of Hindu Rashtra for their nation, but they put on hijab when in Riyadh very obediently without a murmur and absolutely accept as a necessity monarchies in the Islamic lands. They use harshest possible words when someone in a feeble tweet, meekly and apologetically asks, why don't you look at the barbaric torturous treatment meted out to Sadhvi Pragya?
Yakub is innocent because they think so, but Sadhvi deserves most inhuman tortures because she is different? They would knock at the doors of the Supreme Court justice in the wee hours of morning , in a last ditch effort to see if Yakub can be sent back from the gallows to his barrack, but would oppose bail to Maya Kodnani? Why?
With hate in their eyes they become champions of human rights, justice and fair play. Yes, surely. For them justice and fair play mean opposing anything and everything a Hindu nationalist may say or ask for, justifying Hindu massacres as a "reaction" (ISIS model of instant justice) - but exhorting constitution when the matter relates to a non-Hindu. First they falsify history and create a Gulag at every news desk, then term efforts for every correction as "saffron-distortion".
Their flag of being secular is made of several threads like supporting Kashmiri anti-nationals, trips to Pakistan's terror land and hobnobbing with Hafiz Saeeds, sympathising and supporting Maoists and instantly opposing judicial verdicts and decrees if they are against Teestas, Yakubs and Geelanis, and happily standing firm with Northeast's traitor insurgents. They have a clear agenda, and we must appreciate how firmly they stand for it, come what may.
Today, we pray to god, please have mercy on us, grant us a life that a great Indian Muslim Dr Abdul Kalam had, and grant us the death like you granted to him, instant and among his most beloved people, spreading love and peace. Amen.