By Kuldip Nayar
Published: October 10, 2011
The Express Tribune: With the International Herald Tribune
I have no personal differences with people who want to abolish capital punishment. It is their principled stand, as they claim, and it holds good in all cases where death sentences have been awarded. The risk of hanging an innocent person is too great, they say. Not even the state has the right to end a life which is given by God. The rationale of nearly 150 countries is more or less the same and they have taken away from their courts the power to award death sentences, however heinous the crime maybe.
India and the US are also under pressure from human rights organisations to change their archaic laws and ban the death sentence. My own belief is that the death sentence is barbaric and it needs to be abolished. It reminds me of the days when the dictum of tooth for tooth prevailed. Our government is still stuck on the idea that death sentence acts as a deterrent or that it assuages the grief of those who lose their dear ones.
I am bewildered at the attitude of the leaders and activists who ask for clemency on behalf of the culprits, who should have been hanged long ago.
This faulty thinking first made the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa, ask for clemency of three convicts of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Now, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal has asked mercy for DP Singh Bhuller who triggered a bomb blast in September 1993, which killed nine people.
And the latest in line is the chief minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Omar Abdullah, who had raised the question of whether the resolution for clemency of Afzal Guru by his state assembly would go unnoticed, as was the Tamil Nadu assembly’s resolution. Afzal Guru was sentenced to death for having attacked the parliament, which is the symbol of India’s democratic polity. All three chief ministers have politicised criminal acts. They have never demanded the abolition of the death penalty. The cases they espouse and believe, give them electoral advantage. Since politicians weigh everything on the scales of vote, they do not mind preaching something against the constitution.
Or, is it possible that they are afraid to take a stand on the basic issue and prefer to go along wherever the wind blows at a particular time? The raucous created in the Tamil Nadu assembly has been copied by the AJK assembly, beating all records. In both the cases, the ruling parties have been in the forefront in fomenting trouble.
The Supreme Court’s remark holds well in all the three cases. Taking up the mercy petition filed by Bhullar, the court has asked the government to explain the delay. After a lapse of eight years, the president who disposes mercy petitions rejected the plea on May 25 this year. All countries in South Asia have jumped into the arena. Sarabjeet Singh must languish in a Pakistani jail because he is the prize which Islamabad wants to cash in on some day to extract concession from New Delhi. Likewise, India must have a hostage in the shape of one prisoner or another from Pakistan.
There is no other way except to go back to what the law demands. Yet, I believe that there should be no hanging of Afzal Guru, D P Singh Bhuller, Sarabjeet Singh and the Rajiv Gandhi assassins. Their death sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment. And life sentence should mean sentence for life, till the culprit breathes his last in jail.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 11th, 2011.
Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/271019/a-matter-of-life-and-death/
accessed on 12th October 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Rajiv assassins' plea should not be moved out of Tamil Nadu: Govt
New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu government today opposed in the Supreme Court a plea to shift out of the Madras High Court the appeals of three Rajiv Gandhi assassins, challenging their death penalty on account of an 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petition by the President.
Tamil Nadu's Additional Advocate General Gurukrishna Kumar opposed the plea for transfer of the three convicts' appeals out of the state High Court, denying allegations made before the apex court that the atmosphere in the state was too "vitiated and surcharged" to hold a free and fair hearing in the case.
Kumar also questioned the locus standi of petitioner L K Venkat, seeking the apex court's direction for transfer of the case out of Madras High Court to the Supreme Court.
Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for the three convicts on death row, also opposed the transfer plea on the ground that Article 139A (relating to transfer of certain cases) gives power only to the Attorney General of India or the aggrieved parties to file a petition for transfer.
Venkat's counsel L Nandkumar, however, submitted that a free and fair hearing of the proceedings cannot be held in the Madras High Court owing to the "surcharged, hostile and vitiated" atmosphere prevailing there.
After hearing the arguments by various parties, a bench of justices G S Signhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya asked the state to file a counter affidavit within a week and posted the matter for further hearing to October 19.
The bench asked Tamil Nadu government to file a counter affidavit on the plea for shifting appeals of the three condemned prisoners in the assassination case out of the state high court.
"Though the request made by the state additional advocate general is unreasonable, we are granting time for filing the counter affidavit," the bench said.
The judges were irked at Tamil Nadu government's request as it had failed to reply till date to its September 15 notice on plea.
On a petition by the three death row convicts, the Madras High Court had earlier stayed their hanging and had issued notices to the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government.
The three convicts - Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan alias Arivu - had challenged the sentence despite the same having been upheld earlier by the apex court and the President having rejected their mercy pleas subsequently.
Venkat subsequently had moved the apex court seeking transfer of their appeals out of the state high court and the apex court had issued notices on the petition to the state.
Venkat had alleged in his plea that the convicts' appeals challenging their death sentences cannot be heard in a free and fair atmosphere in the state as several supporters of the banned LLTE were interfering with the functioning of the judiciary by raising slogans in support of the convicts.
Source : http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rajiv-assassins-plea-should-not-be-moved-out-of-tamil-nadu-govt-139995
Tamil Nadu's Additional Advocate General Gurukrishna Kumar opposed the plea for transfer of the three convicts' appeals out of the state High Court, denying allegations made before the apex court that the atmosphere in the state was too "vitiated and surcharged" to hold a free and fair hearing in the case.
Kumar also questioned the locus standi of petitioner L K Venkat, seeking the apex court's direction for transfer of the case out of Madras High Court to the Supreme Court.
Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for the three convicts on death row, also opposed the transfer plea on the ground that Article 139A (relating to transfer of certain cases) gives power only to the Attorney General of India or the aggrieved parties to file a petition for transfer.
Venkat's counsel L Nandkumar, however, submitted that a free and fair hearing of the proceedings cannot be held in the Madras High Court owing to the "surcharged, hostile and vitiated" atmosphere prevailing there.
After hearing the arguments by various parties, a bench of justices G S Signhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya asked the state to file a counter affidavit within a week and posted the matter for further hearing to October 19.
The bench asked Tamil Nadu government to file a counter affidavit on the plea for shifting appeals of the three condemned prisoners in the assassination case out of the state high court.
"Though the request made by the state additional advocate general is unreasonable, we are granting time for filing the counter affidavit," the bench said.
The judges were irked at Tamil Nadu government's request as it had failed to reply till date to its September 15 notice on plea.
On a petition by the three death row convicts, the Madras High Court had earlier stayed their hanging and had issued notices to the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government.
The three convicts - Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan alias Arivu - had challenged the sentence despite the same having been upheld earlier by the apex court and the President having rejected their mercy pleas subsequently.
Venkat subsequently had moved the apex court seeking transfer of their appeals out of the state high court and the apex court had issued notices on the petition to the state.
Venkat had alleged in his plea that the convicts' appeals challenging their death sentences cannot be heard in a free and fair atmosphere in the state as several supporters of the banned LLTE were interfering with the functioning of the judiciary by raising slogans in support of the convicts.
Source : http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rajiv-assassins-plea-should-not-be-moved-out-of-tamil-nadu-govt-139995
EU outlines death penalty policy
In a statement on the occasion of World and European Day against the Death Penalty, which is being observed today, the European Union has expressed the hope that Trinidad and Tobago will “soon choose to leave the minority group of countries that still retain the death penalty”. The EU stated: “After three decades of steady progress, more than two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. The EU is leading the efforts to achieve universal abolition of the death penalty. “We welcome the UN’s recent resolutions on the global moratorium on the use of the death penalty, with a view to its complete abolition, supported by a wide coalition of States from all regions of the world.
“The growing support granted to UN resolutions on this matter in 2007, 2008 and 2010 confirms an increasing international trend against the death penalty. “At the same time, while we acknowledge the growing number of countries which have done away with the death penalty (the figure grew from 55 to 97, between 1993 and 2009), we cannot ignore the fact that 58 countries in the world still retain the death penalty. “The EU considers the death penalty to be a cruel and inhuman punishment, which represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity. It only serves to aggravate a culture of violence and retribution.
“In its efforts against the death penalty, the EU is actively supported by states from all regions of the world. The EU encourages public debate, strengthening public opposition and putting pressure on retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty, or at least introduce a moratorium as a first step. “The EU also acts against the death penalty in multilateral fora such as the United Nations; a culmination of this effort was the resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2007.” The UN General Assembly adopted in 2008, non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.
The vote on the non-binding resolution was 54 against, 29 abstentions and 104 in favour. “At present there is a worldwide trend towards abolition of the death penalty. Around 139 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or practice.” Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, Wikipedia estimates that more than 60 per cent of the world’s population live in countries where executions take place. Among the countries that retain capital punishment are the United States of America, China, India and Indonesia—the four most populous nations in the world. Capital punishment is also legal in Israel, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. The execution of prisoners found guilty of capital crimes in T&T is still the law of the land, despite efforts by anti-capital punishment campaigners to lobby the Government to change the law.
source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/10/10/eu-outlines-death-penalty-policy
accessed on 10th October 2011
“The growing support granted to UN resolutions on this matter in 2007, 2008 and 2010 confirms an increasing international trend against the death penalty. “At the same time, while we acknowledge the growing number of countries which have done away with the death penalty (the figure grew from 55 to 97, between 1993 and 2009), we cannot ignore the fact that 58 countries in the world still retain the death penalty. “The EU considers the death penalty to be a cruel and inhuman punishment, which represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity. It only serves to aggravate a culture of violence and retribution.
“In its efforts against the death penalty, the EU is actively supported by states from all regions of the world. The EU encourages public debate, strengthening public opposition and putting pressure on retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty, or at least introduce a moratorium as a first step. “The EU also acts against the death penalty in multilateral fora such as the United Nations; a culmination of this effort was the resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2007.” The UN General Assembly adopted in 2008, non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.
The vote on the non-binding resolution was 54 against, 29 abstentions and 104 in favour. “At present there is a worldwide trend towards abolition of the death penalty. Around 139 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or practice.” Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, Wikipedia estimates that more than 60 per cent of the world’s population live in countries where executions take place. Among the countries that retain capital punishment are the United States of America, China, India and Indonesia—the four most populous nations in the world. Capital punishment is also legal in Israel, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. The execution of prisoners found guilty of capital crimes in T&T is still the law of the land, despite efforts by anti-capital punishment campaigners to lobby the Government to change the law.
source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/10/10/eu-outlines-death-penalty-policy
accessed on 10th October 2011
Abolish death penalty, EU tells India
Death sentences for many Indian fugitives hang in balance as EU supports abolition of death penalty
Iftikhar Gilani
New Delhi
The issues of the execution of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar and charging Abu Salem, a close associate of international fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, under clauses demanding death sentence are set to create a diplomatic row between India and Europe. The European Union, on Monday, declared abolition of the death penalty the world over as one of their human rights and foreign policy objectives to mark 10 October as the World and European Day against the Death Penalty.
In a joint declaration by Catherine Ashton, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, reaffirmed united opposition to the death penalty, and committed to work for its worldwide abolition.
“We consider capital punishment to be inhumane, and a violation of human dignity. Experience in Europe has taught us that the death penalty does not prevent an increase in violent crime, and nor does it bring justice to the victims of such crimes. Any capital punishment resulting from a miscarriage of justice, from which no legal system can be immune, represents irreversible loss of human life,” said the declaration.
Earlier, in a letter to the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Ashton had made it clear that the grouping opposes death sentence pronounced to Prof. Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, a Khalistani militant. Bhullar is facing the gallows after President Pratibha Patil rejected his petition of mercy.
Bhullar was deported from Germany on 18 January, 1995, after his application seeking political asylum was rejected by German authorities. The decision to deport him was declared illegal by a Frankfurt court two years later. Bhullar was then arrested by Delhi Police at the airport on charges of falsification of documents. However, he was later handed over to the Punjab Police, who booked him under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, for engineering bomb blasts at the Youth Congress office in Delhi and elsewhere in Punjab.
Outgoing German ambassador to India Thomas Matussek believed that Germany wouldn’t have deported him, knowing the fate of his case. He said Bhullar’s deportation came as he had not disclosed full fact before German authorities and the court there. “Unfortunately for him and for us, he presented a forged passport and gave totally wrong story. When that was put to court it was clear there was no basis for his asylum and court ruled he could be deported,” he said. “Later on, a real story came out. He hadn’t told us,” the ambassador added. Matussek made it clear that in a similar case in future, the person would not be deported. If this case comes up in Germany now and he tells the full story, we will not deport him,” he maintained.
In the case of Abu Salem, the Portugal High Court has cancelled the extradition order of 2005 under which the gangster was handed to Indian authorities and was brought to India. The High Court had cancelled the extradition order on grounds that the terms and conditions of extradition were violated by Indian authorities.
As per the extradition order, he shall not be given the death sentence and not be put to trial for the offences other than mentioned in the extradition order and not be given a sentence of 25 years. The CBI has already filed an appeal at the Supreme Court in Lisbon, contending that India has strictly adhered to the terms and conditions of the extradition order.
The declaration also called for full implementation of a recent UN resolution, which called for global moratorium on the use of the death penalty, with a view to its complete abolition. The EU is also the first regional body to have adopted rules prohibiting the trade in goods used for capital punishment (and torture and ill-treatment), as well as the supply of technical assistance related to such goods. The EU’s political commitment has been matched by substantial financial support for concrete projects.
Iftikhar Gilani is Special Correspondent with Tehelka.com.
iftikhar@tehelka.com
Source: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws101011World.asp
accessed on 10th October 2011
Iftikhar Gilani
New Delhi
The issues of the execution of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar and charging Abu Salem, a close associate of international fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, under clauses demanding death sentence are set to create a diplomatic row between India and Europe. The European Union, on Monday, declared abolition of the death penalty the world over as one of their human rights and foreign policy objectives to mark 10 October as the World and European Day against the Death Penalty.
In a joint declaration by Catherine Ashton, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, reaffirmed united opposition to the death penalty, and committed to work for its worldwide abolition.
“We consider capital punishment to be inhumane, and a violation of human dignity. Experience in Europe has taught us that the death penalty does not prevent an increase in violent crime, and nor does it bring justice to the victims of such crimes. Any capital punishment resulting from a miscarriage of justice, from which no legal system can be immune, represents irreversible loss of human life,” said the declaration.
Earlier, in a letter to the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Ashton had made it clear that the grouping opposes death sentence pronounced to Prof. Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, a Khalistani militant. Bhullar is facing the gallows after President Pratibha Patil rejected his petition of mercy.
Bhullar was deported from Germany on 18 January, 1995, after his application seeking political asylum was rejected by German authorities. The decision to deport him was declared illegal by a Frankfurt court two years later. Bhullar was then arrested by Delhi Police at the airport on charges of falsification of documents. However, he was later handed over to the Punjab Police, who booked him under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, for engineering bomb blasts at the Youth Congress office in Delhi and elsewhere in Punjab.
Outgoing German ambassador to India Thomas Matussek believed that Germany wouldn’t have deported him, knowing the fate of his case. He said Bhullar’s deportation came as he had not disclosed full fact before German authorities and the court there. “Unfortunately for him and for us, he presented a forged passport and gave totally wrong story. When that was put to court it was clear there was no basis for his asylum and court ruled he could be deported,” he said. “Later on, a real story came out. He hadn’t told us,” the ambassador added. Matussek made it clear that in a similar case in future, the person would not be deported. If this case comes up in Germany now and he tells the full story, we will not deport him,” he maintained.
In the case of Abu Salem, the Portugal High Court has cancelled the extradition order of 2005 under which the gangster was handed to Indian authorities and was brought to India. The High Court had cancelled the extradition order on grounds that the terms and conditions of extradition were violated by Indian authorities.
As per the extradition order, he shall not be given the death sentence and not be put to trial for the offences other than mentioned in the extradition order and not be given a sentence of 25 years. The CBI has already filed an appeal at the Supreme Court in Lisbon, contending that India has strictly adhered to the terms and conditions of the extradition order.
The declaration also called for full implementation of a recent UN resolution, which called for global moratorium on the use of the death penalty, with a view to its complete abolition. The EU is also the first regional body to have adopted rules prohibiting the trade in goods used for capital punishment (and torture and ill-treatment), as well as the supply of technical assistance related to such goods. The EU’s political commitment has been matched by substantial financial support for concrete projects.
Iftikhar Gilani is Special Correspondent with Tehelka.com.
iftikhar@tehelka.com
Source: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws101011World.asp
accessed on 10th October 2011
Back from the brink
Chennai:
One morning four decades ago, Thiagu killed a man. It was neither a mistake nor an accident. He and his associates planned carefully, made a failed attempt a few months earlier and finally managed to murder a landlord on that morning of September way back in 1970, hacking him to death on the spot. In an era where the attempt was to overthrow “casteist” and “classist” rulers, that killing was to herald ‘Spring Thunder’ in Tamil Nadu.
K Thiagarajan alias Thiagu was then a young man of 20, when he read Naxal leader Charu Mazumdar’s revolutionary exhortation ‘To the Youth and the Students’. The impact it had on the young man’s mind was such that he left his studies the next day and moved to villages to be among the peasants and working class, toiling among then even while educating and preparing the masses for the revolution that he then believed was imminent and inevitable. Change was the goal, armed uprising was the means and violence was but a justifiable path for the greater common good.
“The idea we had then was that if we kill a few landlords who oppressed the poor and attack the police who always sided with the rich, we would be able to create a revolutionary base in Thanjavur first and take the struggle forward from there. Though the means were violent, the objective was a just one,” recalled Thiagu.
The target was Muthu Thangappa, a 40-something landlord, at Thiruvonam village in Thanjavur district. Thangappa, a former panchayat president, was not a big landlord, but was allegedly casteist; one who they believed had murdered many poor peasants.
At around 7 a.m. on September 27, 1970, as Thangappa washed himself in the village pond and was to proceed to drink arrack as was his routine, a squad of five hacked him and assaulted another who tried to stop the attack.
Though the squad members dispersed from the scene immediately, Thiagu, who was new to the area, was caught within a few hours. Some of his accomplices, too, were soon in police custody. The group tried to attempt an escape by attacking the police party that took them to the Thanjavur sessions court for trial, but failed.
During the trial, the accused refused to cooperate with the hearing, maintaining that the “bourgeois” court cannot judge their actions. Instead, while the trial was going on, they shouted slogans, sang revolutionary songs and staged plays about a classless society. Without an advocate to argue their case, the verdict went against them—Lenin Rangasamy and Gurumurthy were awarded death penalty and the rest, including Thiagu, got life imprisonment.
When the case came to the High Court for confirmation, a few lawyers appealed against the sessions court verdict. “Though we refused to appeal, continuing our boycott of the proceedings, the case automatically came to the High Court for reference trial as is mandatory for all cases where the verdict is capital punishment. I wrote to senior lawyer Krishnamurthi stating that we don’t want to appeal to which he replied, ‘We will save you in spite of you’,” says Thiagu.
In the reference trial, the higher court observed that despite the insistence of the accused to boycott the proceedings, the trial court erred in not appointing a lawyer or at least cross-examining the witnesses, leading to a procedural flaw and ordered a retrial, this time at the Nagapattinam sessions court.
That court not only confirmed death for Lenin and Gurumurthy, it also turned Thiagu’s life imprisonment to death penalty in the verdict passed on July 7, 1972. The three death penalties were subsequently confirmed by the High Court in October.
Waiting for death inside the prison, they read a lot and discussed all that they read, which gradually changed their outlook towards the path they had undertaken even as they stood by the aim. This led Thiagu to disown killings as the means to overthrow the system.
“When I looked back and re-examined the whole process and ideas, I realised that however noble the goal, the means we adopted were not the best. When the landlord was murdered, the lower castes distributed sweets and when we were awarded death, the caste Hindus did the same. We were not able to overcome these biases,” says Thiagu.
Even though the trio didn’t want to seek mercy, an activist, A G Kasturirangan, popularly known as AGK, drafted a petition on their behalf in 1973 in which he referred to a similar case in Kerala where one Mundur Ravunni was let off the gallows as the person he was accused of killing was a cruel landlord. The next year, on April 10, 1973, Thiagu, Lenin and Gurumurthi had their death penalty reduced to life imprisonment by the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.
During his time in prison, Thiagu read and reread, discussed and debated about the world, life and politics. He translated Karl Marx’s Capital for the first time in Tamil, ran a handwritten paper inside the prison called Swatanthiradaham (Thirst for Freedom) and fought for the welfare of prisoners through the Organisation for the Rights of the Imprisoned. “For us, prison was just a venue, a platform where you stage the struggle. We educated many, made them aware and started discussing public issues,” he says.
On November 29, 1985, Thiagu and the other two were released from prison after the authorities confirmed that they were no longer a threat to the society.
After his release, Thiagu immersed himself in finishing his work on translating Capital, which he eventually completed seven years after his release from the erstwhile Chennai central prison. Politically, he moved from Maoism to Indian mainstream Communism, though not for long. By then he was attracted to Tamil nationalism that was not acceptable to the Left and he was expelled from the party.
Around this time, Thiagu started a school, Thai Tamil Primary School, outside Chennai which focussed on educating underprivileged children. The idea was to educate children so as to equip them to be constructive elements with the larger goal of a casteless, classless society. Twenty years hence, the school has nine teachers for 150 students, running classes from KG to class 8.
He is now the president of Tamilar Desiya Viduthalai Iyakkam, a forum that advocates independence of Tamil Nadu through a political process. He writes extensively on most social matters, especially Tamil nationalism, Sri Lankan Tamils and abolition of death penalty. He is among the prominent speakers in Tamil Nadu on any of these subjects.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/back-from-the-brink/857448/
accessed on 10th October 2011
One morning four decades ago, Thiagu killed a man. It was neither a mistake nor an accident. He and his associates planned carefully, made a failed attempt a few months earlier and finally managed to murder a landlord on that morning of September way back in 1970, hacking him to death on the spot. In an era where the attempt was to overthrow “casteist” and “classist” rulers, that killing was to herald ‘Spring Thunder’ in Tamil Nadu.
K Thiagarajan alias Thiagu was then a young man of 20, when he read Naxal leader Charu Mazumdar’s revolutionary exhortation ‘To the Youth and the Students’. The impact it had on the young man’s mind was such that he left his studies the next day and moved to villages to be among the peasants and working class, toiling among then even while educating and preparing the masses for the revolution that he then believed was imminent and inevitable. Change was the goal, armed uprising was the means and violence was but a justifiable path for the greater common good.
“The idea we had then was that if we kill a few landlords who oppressed the poor and attack the police who always sided with the rich, we would be able to create a revolutionary base in Thanjavur first and take the struggle forward from there. Though the means were violent, the objective was a just one,” recalled Thiagu.
The target was Muthu Thangappa, a 40-something landlord, at Thiruvonam village in Thanjavur district. Thangappa, a former panchayat president, was not a big landlord, but was allegedly casteist; one who they believed had murdered many poor peasants.
At around 7 a.m. on September 27, 1970, as Thangappa washed himself in the village pond and was to proceed to drink arrack as was his routine, a squad of five hacked him and assaulted another who tried to stop the attack.
Though the squad members dispersed from the scene immediately, Thiagu, who was new to the area, was caught within a few hours. Some of his accomplices, too, were soon in police custody. The group tried to attempt an escape by attacking the police party that took them to the Thanjavur sessions court for trial, but failed.
During the trial, the accused refused to cooperate with the hearing, maintaining that the “bourgeois” court cannot judge their actions. Instead, while the trial was going on, they shouted slogans, sang revolutionary songs and staged plays about a classless society. Without an advocate to argue their case, the verdict went against them—Lenin Rangasamy and Gurumurthy were awarded death penalty and the rest, including Thiagu, got life imprisonment.
When the case came to the High Court for confirmation, a few lawyers appealed against the sessions court verdict. “Though we refused to appeal, continuing our boycott of the proceedings, the case automatically came to the High Court for reference trial as is mandatory for all cases where the verdict is capital punishment. I wrote to senior lawyer Krishnamurthi stating that we don’t want to appeal to which he replied, ‘We will save you in spite of you’,” says Thiagu.
In the reference trial, the higher court observed that despite the insistence of the accused to boycott the proceedings, the trial court erred in not appointing a lawyer or at least cross-examining the witnesses, leading to a procedural flaw and ordered a retrial, this time at the Nagapattinam sessions court.
That court not only confirmed death for Lenin and Gurumurthy, it also turned Thiagu’s life imprisonment to death penalty in the verdict passed on July 7, 1972. The three death penalties were subsequently confirmed by the High Court in October.
Waiting for death inside the prison, they read a lot and discussed all that they read, which gradually changed their outlook towards the path they had undertaken even as they stood by the aim. This led Thiagu to disown killings as the means to overthrow the system.
“When I looked back and re-examined the whole process and ideas, I realised that however noble the goal, the means we adopted were not the best. When the landlord was murdered, the lower castes distributed sweets and when we were awarded death, the caste Hindus did the same. We were not able to overcome these biases,” says Thiagu.
Even though the trio didn’t want to seek mercy, an activist, A G Kasturirangan, popularly known as AGK, drafted a petition on their behalf in 1973 in which he referred to a similar case in Kerala where one Mundur Ravunni was let off the gallows as the person he was accused of killing was a cruel landlord. The next year, on April 10, 1973, Thiagu, Lenin and Gurumurthi had their death penalty reduced to life imprisonment by the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.
During his time in prison, Thiagu read and reread, discussed and debated about the world, life and politics. He translated Karl Marx’s Capital for the first time in Tamil, ran a handwritten paper inside the prison called Swatanthiradaham (Thirst for Freedom) and fought for the welfare of prisoners through the Organisation for the Rights of the Imprisoned. “For us, prison was just a venue, a platform where you stage the struggle. We educated many, made them aware and started discussing public issues,” he says.
On November 29, 1985, Thiagu and the other two were released from prison after the authorities confirmed that they were no longer a threat to the society.
After his release, Thiagu immersed himself in finishing his work on translating Capital, which he eventually completed seven years after his release from the erstwhile Chennai central prison. Politically, he moved from Maoism to Indian mainstream Communism, though not for long. By then he was attracted to Tamil nationalism that was not acceptable to the Left and he was expelled from the party.
Around this time, Thiagu started a school, Thai Tamil Primary School, outside Chennai which focussed on educating underprivileged children. The idea was to educate children so as to equip them to be constructive elements with the larger goal of a casteless, classless society. Twenty years hence, the school has nine teachers for 150 students, running classes from KG to class 8.
He is now the president of Tamilar Desiya Viduthalai Iyakkam, a forum that advocates independence of Tamil Nadu through a political process. He writes extensively on most social matters, especially Tamil nationalism, Sri Lankan Tamils and abolition of death penalty. He is among the prominent speakers in Tamil Nadu on any of these subjects.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/back-from-the-brink/857448/
accessed on 10th October 2011
Burning family alive rarest of rare crime, rules SC
NEW DELHI: Upholding death penalty to a man guilty of burning alive his wife and three children, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the crime fell in the rarest of rare category and that the accused could not be "reformed or rehabilitated".
The case pertained to Ajitsingh Harnamsingh Gujral of Mumbai, who, after a fight with his wife on the night of April 9-10, 2003, poured gallons of petrol on her and the children, set them on fire and fled. Four days later, he was caught in Madanganj in Ajmer district, Rajasthan.
Discussing a whole gamut of Supreme Court judgments dealing with death penalty and laying down the rarest of rare category guidelines, Justice Katju said: "In our opinion this is one of such cases. Burning living persons to death is a horrible act which causes excruciating pain to the victim, and this could not have been unknown to Gujral."
"A person like Gujral who instead of doing his duty of protecting his family kills them in such a cruel and barbaric manner cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. The balance sheet is heavily against him and accordingly we uphold the death sentence awarded to him," the bench said.
The apex court also examined the trend of death penalty worldwide and noted the divergence — 96 countries have abolished it, 34 have not used it for a considerable period of time while 58 countries still retain it.
Among the European countries, Italy abolished death penalty in 1947, followed by Germany (1949), UK (1973) and France (1981). Canada did it in 1976 and Russia has not imposed death penalty on anyone since 1996. Australia last did in 1967 before formally abolishing it in 2010.
Quoting Amnesty International data, Justice Katju said: "China executes more people than all the rest of the world put together. It has death penalty for a variety of crimes — aggravated murder, drug trafficking, large scale corruption etc."
He said the UN General Assembly in 2007-08 passed a nonbinding resolution for global moratorium of execution with a view to eventually abolishing it. "However, 65% of the world population lives in countries like China, India, Indonesia and the US which continue to apply death penalty, although both India and Indonesia use it rarely," the bench said.
In the Indian context, the bench said only the legislature could abolish death penalty and not the courts. "As long as the death penalty exists in the statute book it has to be imposed in some cases, otherwise it will tantamount to repeal of the death penalty by judiciary," it said.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-14/india/30153982_1_death-penalty-rare-category-justice-katju
accessed on 10th October 2011
The case pertained to Ajitsingh Harnamsingh Gujral of Mumbai, who, after a fight with his wife on the night of April 9-10, 2003, poured gallons of petrol on her and the children, set them on fire and fled. Four days later, he was caught in Madanganj in Ajmer district, Rajasthan.
Discussing a whole gamut of Supreme Court judgments dealing with death penalty and laying down the rarest of rare category guidelines, Justice Katju said: "In our opinion this is one of such cases. Burning living persons to death is a horrible act which causes excruciating pain to the victim, and this could not have been unknown to Gujral."
"A person like Gujral who instead of doing his duty of protecting his family kills them in such a cruel and barbaric manner cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. The balance sheet is heavily against him and accordingly we uphold the death sentence awarded to him," the bench said.
The apex court also examined the trend of death penalty worldwide and noted the divergence — 96 countries have abolished it, 34 have not used it for a considerable period of time while 58 countries still retain it.
Among the European countries, Italy abolished death penalty in 1947, followed by Germany (1949), UK (1973) and France (1981). Canada did it in 1976 and Russia has not imposed death penalty on anyone since 1996. Australia last did in 1967 before formally abolishing it in 2010.
Quoting Amnesty International data, Justice Katju said: "China executes more people than all the rest of the world put together. It has death penalty for a variety of crimes — aggravated murder, drug trafficking, large scale corruption etc."
He said the UN General Assembly in 2007-08 passed a nonbinding resolution for global moratorium of execution with a view to eventually abolishing it. "However, 65% of the world population lives in countries like China, India, Indonesia and the US which continue to apply death penalty, although both India and Indonesia use it rarely," the bench said.
In the Indian context, the bench said only the legislature could abolish death penalty and not the courts. "As long as the death penalty exists in the statute book it has to be imposed in some cases, otherwise it will tantamount to repeal of the death penalty by judiciary," it said.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-14/india/30153982_1_death-penalty-rare-category-justice-katju
accessed on 10th October 2011
SC stays Ajmal Kasab’s death verdict
NEW DELHI - Supreme Court has stayed death sentence of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack convict Ajmal Kasab. The Supreme Court today heard the plea of the Pakistani terrorist challenging his conviction and death sentence in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case. Kasab, the sole convict in the case, has filed the petition through jail authorities in the apex court which had appointed senior advocate Raju Ramachandaran as amicus curie to assist it in deciding the appeal.
On September 2, the apex court had agreed to hear the plea of Maharashtra government against the acquittal of two accused Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed in the 26/11 case. It, however, had refused to pass any order on Kasab when the state government pleaded that his letter to the Supreme Court challenging his death sentence should be tagged with this appeal. The Bombay High Court had in its February 21 verdict upheld the trial court order awarding death sentence to Kasab for the "brutal and diabolical" attacks aimed at "destabilising" the government.
Source: http://www.newzfirst.com/web/guest/full-story/-/asset_publisher/Qd8l/content/sc-stays-ajmal-kasab%E2%80%99s-death-verdict?redirect=%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fhome
accessed on 10th October 2011
On September 2, the apex court had agreed to hear the plea of Maharashtra government against the acquittal of two accused Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed in the 26/11 case. It, however, had refused to pass any order on Kasab when the state government pleaded that his letter to the Supreme Court challenging his death sentence should be tagged with this appeal. The Bombay High Court had in its February 21 verdict upheld the trial court order awarding death sentence to Kasab for the "brutal and diabolical" attacks aimed at "destabilising" the government.
Source: http://www.newzfirst.com/web/guest/full-story/-/asset_publisher/Qd8l/content/sc-stays-ajmal-kasab%E2%80%99s-death-verdict?redirect=%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fhome
accessed on 10th October 2011
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