2008 Mumbai Attacks Conviction And Capital Punishment

[mcgillianaire]

The alleged sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks has been convicted for murder and waging war with India. The Pakistani national is likely to be sentenced to death. Although executions are legal in India, they are rarely used. In 1983, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases". The last execution was in 2004 when a security guard was hanged in Kolkata for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl fourteen years earlier. However, it appears the last trained hangman in India has retired, leaving the country with no executioners! And even if Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab is sentenced to death, it will merely result in "a lengthy series of appeals and an indeterminate wait on death row". Ninety-five countries have abolished capital punishment. But what do you think? Are there exceptional crimes that deserve punishment beyond a lifetime of incarceration? Share your thoughts!

[Poll #1559687]

Comments

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

No; I'm not a pacifist, and believe that there is such a thing as a just war. However, I don't believe that a government (in peacetime, anyway) has the right to kill cold-bloodedly and not in self-defence.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. I admire your principled stand on capital punishment but I find it difficult to reconcile a lesser punishment with the suffering of family and friends.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

On the "lesser punishment" point... is it, though? messicat below makes that argument.

On the more general point: I've never had someone close to me murdered. If I had, then I almost certainly would wish every possible torment on the murderer. But that still doesn't mean it would be right to inflict it; that to me would be closer to revenge than justice.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Yeh, fair point.