A happy, average middle class family living in Calcutta with a daughter they cherish. One fine day, she’s found, lying in a pool of blood, brutally raped and murdered. She's 14. A horrible and undeserved end to an innocent life.
Years later, when the man who committed the crime is about to be executed, perhaps the family breathes a tiny sigh of relief. Their little daughter is finally getting the justice she deserved. But hey, suddenly it’s not about justice for their daughter, the victim, Hetal Parikh. It’s justice for the murderer that they’re talking about.
If there’s one news item that simply boils my blood these days it’s the stayed execution of rapist and murderer Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata.
I fail to understand why so-called sensible people like Aparna Sen and co. have filed clemency pleas on behalf of a man who raped and brutally murdered a 14 year old girl. Change it to life imprisonment, they’ve argued. For god's sake, why?
By what logic does this man deserve pardon? That he wasn't in his senses when he did it? That he has already been punished by being in the prison for years? That he repents what he has done?
People are never short of strange arguments. Check out this inane quote by the defence counsel in this NDTV story.
'Please don’t teach children this hunger for blood,' he says. What nonsense is he talking about? And what nonsense are self-righteous intellectuals like Aparna Sen and Mahasweta Devi talking about? Would they appeal for clemency if the victim had been any of their daughters?
To me pardoning a rapist almost looks like encouraging the multitude of perverts lurking out there. Go ahead, commit that crime. You can repent later in jail and there’s always some human rights activist type waiting to bail you out!
And why should they hang the rapist only after his poor, old parents are dead? What about the girl's parents who have lived a nightmare all these years? 'My son couldn’t have done such a thing,’ the rapist's father wailed in front of Calcutta Press Club according to a report. Poor man. Yes, we never think anyone close to us, anyone we love, can do anything heinous. But is that argument enough for pardon? And where does human rights come in here?
It's amazing how intelligent, educated people lobbying for someone who has committed the worst crime possible. I shudder to think how Hetal Parikh would’ve endured the last moments of her life. How come human rights doesn’t figure there?