An Acceptable Judgement.
Published by Vijay February 17th, 2007 in Life in India, Nebulous Views, News, PoliticsWarning: This post is about an atrocity that occurred in Tamil Nadu seven years ago & it supports the death penalty. Those not interested may skip it.
SALEM: Holding the causing of death of three young women in a bus-burning incident near Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu in February 2000 as the “rarest of the rare” crime, a court here on Friday awarded capital punishment to three men, all activists of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). Twenty-five others are to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years.
Read the whole news article here.
A related news items about how the investigation and prosecution of the crime was thwarted by the then ruling AIADMK can be found here.
Another news item about the reactions of the victims parents can be found here.
And here is the editorial in the same newspaper which though known for its liberal anti-death penalty views, supports this judgement.
For those interested, here is the background:
Three second-year undergraduate students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore - Kokilavani, Hemalatha and Gayatri - were charred to death when the bus in which they and other students were returing from a study tour, was set ablaze on February 3, 2000, by AIADMK men protesting the conviction of their leader Jayalalithaa in a criminal misconduct and criminal conspiracy case (known popularly as the Kodaikanal Pleasant Stay Hotel case). Eighteen others suffered burn injuries in the incident.
I personally think the First Additional District Sessions Court Judge in Salem has delivered an acceptable if not an appropriate judgement in this case. And I hope and pray that his judgement will not be reversed in the inevitable appeals to higher courts.
It would have been appropriate if it had been ordered that the entire gang which committed this barbarous act be placed in a similar bus and torched in a similar fashion.
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Vijay,
I’m totally against the death penalty, but in some instances it’s a pretty hard stance to justify. Luckily, in Canada, we haven’t had the death penalty for many, many years so we don’t have to agonize about it.
Regards
jmb-The Zero Slasher
I cannot decide if I approve or disapprove of death penalty. Sometimes the atrocity is simply too hard to digest that death for the offenders seems the only fair way to go.
The lesson that we have to learn as human beings is that one moment of emotional upheaval can lead to irrevocable damage. I am sure the offenders did the hideous act in momentary passion, but the outcome has been too traumatic for the victims as well as themselves I am sure. Just one moment of contemplation/introspection could have prevented a lot of misery.
Unrelated to the atrocity being discussed, but related to my comment on unbridled passion, is the stabbing by a kitchen knife, of a friend by his WIFE, in the course of a domestic argument. He is no more, and his wife in jail. Just that one second loss of control….