Death for Death- Because it's torture for the family of the deceased to exist knowing that the killer breathes.

The debate of capital punishment and death sentence is a never-ending and an ongoing one for many years now. I still remember the final year of my undergraduate studies when this debate fired up again due to the death sentence of Yakub Memon. I was and still am, all for capital punishment and death sentence. In India a convict is punished by death in the rarest of rare cases and I feel that this needs to be widened a bit more.

A life taken should be punished by a life taken. Although I understand that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But I also know how difficult it is to breathe every moment knowing that your loved one has burned to ashes, while the one who got him/ her there, breathes and walks freely.

Being an Army Officer’s daughter I may have some of my opinions clouded and biased because the thought of killing all the ‘bad guys’ and saving my father and his fellow soldiers, was something I was born in. But then I lost my brother in a road accident where the man who rammed his car in my brother’s bike was driving at a speed of 130 km/h in a residential area and that too under the influence of alcohol. Since that day, it aches me every moment, that my brother, who was a very safe and efficient driver lost his life while a drunk, goon, driving recklessly, just for fun or thrill, I don’t know, walks, talks, breathes and exists, while we lead our lives with a constant void.

If the justice system would ask me, what punishment does this culprit deserve? The culprit of changing my life, my parents’ lives and snatching all the moments, dreams and aims, we as a family had, deserves nothing but death.

While growing up, I have also been on the other side of the fence where I believed in forgiveness and the belief that only God has the right to take and give life. But as I grew up and saw so many people committing heinous crimes, I started to believe that capital punishment is a justified form of punishment for those criminals and law breakers, who have committed crimes that have changed the victim and the victim’s family’s lives forever. 

My reasons for believing so strongly in taking a life of a human being as a form of punishment are several. 

No human being has the right to take another human being’s life, no matter what the circumstances are, and if one does, then do we really need them to exist in a society where they can just kill someone? A society has rules, and for those violators of these rules we have a justice system. The justice system is not a correctional system, it has to punish the culprits, not only to instil fear in prospective criminals but also to value ‘life’. But when there is no ‘life’ to value, then what’s the punishment for? Taking someone’s life is the most unforgivable and unconscionable sin. The takers of life, need their lives to be taken as well. I have never felt so deeply about capital punishment as I do now, because my blood boils, every time my parents and I have to go to a court hearing and look at the man who drove drunk and reckless and cost my brother’s life. 

I still remember an incident where a 5 year old girl was raped and murdered near my residence in Gurgaon. My first thought of punishment for the rapist and murderer was death. The crime that he committed clearly shows him as incapable of existing and functioning in a society. If he can feel free to rape and murder a 5 year old, then the justice system should feel free to eradicate such monsters from our society to make it a safer place for little girls at least. If even babies aren't safe, what are we headed for then?

I have grown up reading and hearing several terrorist activities that kill hundreds of innocent beings. Armies are deployed to tackle these terrorist organisations and keep their nations' citizens' safe. I have lived in the fear of not knowing whether my father will survive another operation he's embarked upon in the valleys of Jammu and Kashmir. To know that we are sacrificing our nations' sons to defend and keep us safe while there are innocent people dying due to bomb blasts and terrorist attacks, what punishment deems fit to punish those who are killing the innocents?

Nothing but death. How do you expect the survivors or families of the deceased to live with the fact that the ones who changed their lives 180 degrees, still live, breathe and feed even if it is behind bars? It's just not right.

Those who are disturbing peace and the balance in life and the universe, taking matters of life and death in their own hands, need to be given a taste of their own medicine.

Even if terrorists are arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment, it is no news that they end up running their terrorist organisations and rackets from within the jail as well. So, honestly no justice is served till they are punished by death, the same what they did should be done to them.

We know that these are dangerous people committing such heinous acts, and these kind of people cannot be put back into the society for the simple reason, which is safety of others. 

When the Nirbhaya rape case happened in Delhi, I was in class 12, and being a resident of Gurgaon (NCR) we were all really shocked and distressed about the state of affairs in Delhi and NCR when it came to Women’s safety. My brother and I, participated in the candle light march that took place among the residents of Gurgaon, as an extension of the protests that were taking place in Delhi. The kind of discussions and questions that were being raised, the absurd comments by various speakers on television, and eventually the passing away of Nirbhaya, accompanied by the entire juvenile discussion and decision that the court made in favour of one of the rapists, made me extremely angry, thinking of how her parents, her friends are going to breathe and live with the fact that her, rapists are still breathing? 

I started thinking then, of a personal experience of being stalked in the late evening while I was returning from my tuitions, and there was a gang of three ‘Gundas’ who were right behind me, till my mom came to my rescue and I just hopped into her car, absolutely speechless and scared to my wits. And the next day, one of them was riding his bike in semi circles around me and harassing me while I was returning home, again. My friends’ father, a politically active and well networked man, got that guy beaten up and took my brother along to witness the bashing. However, after that my parents and I were even more scared. Fearing an acid attack or worse things that the guy along with his gang, might plot against me, as means of revenge. All of this happened during the time of protests in Delhi in 2012. It made me want to put myself in Nirbhaya’s parents’ shoes, and nothing less than death for all the rapists, seemed even close enough to whatever minimal justice it could serve. While I am completely aware and understand that taking someone’s life isn’t going to bring someone else back, but at least knowing that the perpetrators of such heinous crimes don’t exist anymore, to repeat those acts, and that they and their families have been given the same pain, that one’s own family goes through, it brings at least some solace, because there is nothing worse than knowing that someone who inflicted so much pain upon you and your family, is still alive, breathing and existing, when clearly they don’t deserve it. 

In my clear opinion, any criminal act, wherein the victim either ends up dead, (whether directly or indirectly), or is harmed in a way that is beyond repair and the victim’s entire life is going to be spent in mental or physical trauma or both, that completely changes the victim’s life (for example, rape victims, acid attack victims, murderers, honour killing cases, criminals involved in human trafficking etc.), such criminals deserve to die. No one has the right to take someone’s life and if they do, then they don’t deserve to live. Plain and simple.