For those of you living under a rock in Inner Mongolia or those living in an igloo built on a quickly melting iceberg, Ajmal Kasab is one of the terrorists (there were 9 others who cleared the Houri Test and were awarded the promised prize of 72 virgins)who attacked Mumbai 3 years ago and was apprehended.
Kasab has been imprisoned in India ever since. Being sentenced to death by a trial court, with the sentence upheld by Mumbai High Court does not seem to have affected Kasab’s appetite for glory and for err…tandoori chicken. If news reports from prison are to be believed, Kasab has been on the receiving end of glares and stares from fellow prisoners who have been served lauki (a vocal critic of this policy has been the Gandhi scion, of the lesser Gandhi family). This jealousy doesn’t seem to be dying anytime soon since err...Kasab himself is not going to die anytime soon.
In a rare press interview, India’s reticent, rarely talkative Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed questions, which he considered rather clichéd, on why the government has not executed Kasab despite a death penalty being served upon him. The highly educated man that he was, Singh presented the members of press with, not one, but several “reasonable” reasons to justify the government’s stance.
Who to hang?
India’s esteemed intelligence agencies and an extremely vibrant press seemed to have done their homework pretty well, in fact too well, in finding out Kasab’s identity. With some in the Indian establishment claiming credit for proving Kasab’s nationality, the ones that actually did the sleuthing, the Dawn newspaper, moved on to other mundane jobs, leaving the credit-claiming part to professionals with years of training and practice in the task. To compensate for this loss of work, the Indian media provided the public with half a dozen names, it had discovered, ranging from Azam Amir Kasav to Amjad Amir Kamaal, for the same person. Extremely persistent readers can view the complete list here. So the government faces the pertinent problem of deciding on who they are hanging although practically it would be the same person that was caught on camera. PM Singh emphatically stated that there was no point in arranging for an execution with the taxpayer’s money when you don’t know who you would be executing.
How to hang?
The PM also stunned members of the Press with his question on how to hang Kasab. He stated that there was progress in Indo-Pak relationship, (despite the lack of it in the Krishna-Hina relationship) and the dossier diplomacy was as irrelevant as a dosa in a Punjabi Dhaba. Singh expressed his concern that hanging Kasab might ring discord in the present positive state of affairs. Singh also stated that India’s Human Rights record might be tarnished if the country were to execute a death penalty. An angry reporter’s shoe thrown as a response to Singh’s statement failed to make a dent in his impeccably blue turban. The reporter was promptly removed before he could pose a threat to Singh’s human rights. Despite this, Singh could not answer conclusively, questions regarding the human rights of the Indian citizens killed and injured in the carnage.
Why to hang?
The eminent strategist that he was, Singh felt that it made better sense to let Kasab live as his present diet would anyway kill him from all the cholesterol he has gained. Singh also felt this would be a deterrent to prospective health-conscious Jihadists, who would like to maintain their fitness levels while they go meet their 72 virgins. Speaking of which Singh continued, preventing Kasab from dying on the noose would deny him the right over his 72 virgins if he died of natural causes. So letting him die of his own accord was actually a long term strategy to prevent the Mullahs from brainwashing their cadre with the promise of Paradise.
Singh left members of the Press spell bound and seemingly convinced with his list of “Reasonable” reasons on why Kasab could not and should not be hanged. Singh received rich accolades in the headlines of all major newspapers the next day that praised him as “an underrated politician”. The editorial pages however, used the same headline to criticise Singh’s explanation and demanded Kasab’s head on the noose at the same time emphasising that Afzal Guru and several others on the death row be brought to the book as well. Suggestions also include a proposal to modify existing space in the Parliament, which stays unused very often due to adjournments, as the new death row and unemployed MPs as hangmen.
