Hey friends, this has appeared in the website: South Asia Wired, Radio Netherlands worldwide, sorry for blogging after a long interval, cheers vinita
Guest Blogger Vinita Deshmukh on Kasab’s Verdict
We’ve handed over our bloggers’ chair for the day to Vinita Deshmukh, a senior Indian journalist, activist and the editor of the weekly tabloid Intelligent Pune. Vinita Deshmukh has co-authored the book-To the Last Bullet, along with the Vinita Kamte, the wife of Mumbai Additional Commissioner of Police, Ashok Kamte, who died fighting the terrorists in the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai.
Ajmal Kasab has been awarded the death sentence. Well, it would have been surprising only if he had been given anything less than death. Going by the standards of the Indian judiciary, the case you can say was closed fast. Though this is only the Special Court’s verdict and the High Court, Supreme Court and perhaps the mercy petition is yet to go by.
But considering the leaps that technology has made, the verdict was indeed snail paced. The video clips of the 22 year old Kasab showering bullets from his AK47 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus; all clad in jeans, sneakers and the knapsack was proof enough for the court.The killings in Mumbai are considered to be the worst of the so called Fidayeen attacks - such as those on the Indian Parliament or the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai train stations. And popular sentiment found it could concentrate its hatred on Kasab - caught on camera with his machine gun moments before he opened fire on a random public at the CST station. From the station, he ran with his accomplice Abu Ismail, to the Cama Hospital and opened fire on patients and police.
Additional Commissioner Sadanand Date was injured in this attack and three constables lost their lives. The gunmen then freely walked into the Rang Bhavan Lane alongside and killed three more officers: Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner, Eastern Region, Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaska.
The events of 26/11 have touched a deeply emotional chord in Mumbaikers and there has been public unrest at the cost of the gunman’s imprisonment and trial estimated at Rs200,000 per day, (US$ 4500). Unsurprisingly, there has been little opposition to Kasab’s recently awarded death sentence.
When I wrote the book `To the last bullet’ for Vinita Kamte, I was anguished that her voice was not being heard by the Mumbai Police and the Home Ministry.
Firstly, her ardent requests to the Mumbai police authorities to let her know the sequence of events that led to the death of her husband, Ashok Kamte, fell on deaf ears. Despite being the wife of a senior IPS officer, she was compelled to use the Right To Information Act (RTI) to procure all call log records; which revealed conversations between the Control Room manned by the then Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria and the police officers on Ground Zero on the night of 26/11.
She along with her twin sister Revati had to burn the midnight oil for nights on end to scrutinise and analyse the call log records only to find serious goof ups by the Control Room which kept the three officers in the dark of the movement of the two terrorists. This led to a triple tragedy that could probably have been avoided.
Mrs Kamte has heard many excuses from the police about the death of her husband and his colleagues: `The three officers went in a hurry” , “We don’t know how they went together’, “They did not understand the gravity of the situation”. “To the Last Bullet” is the story of the journey of Mrs Vinita Kamte undertook to find the truth behind the maze of mistakes and cover-ups behind the death of her husband.
And the widow of the hero of this tragedy believes that the killer Ajmal Kasab got a fairer public hearing than she did.
13 comments:
Hi Vinita...
CONGRATS for the book! I'm sure it must have been a very unique kind of experience...!!
Yes Nargis, tks, it was indeed a great experience and still keep receiving mails from readers.You know what it is like!
My thoughts on AK, sure enough deserves an AK47!
Great stuff Vinita!
Hey Faiyaz a belated happy birthday to you - actually i was trying to post the comment early yesterday morning and my computer got hung before i pressed the `publish' button. I hope you had a great day and wish you a great life!
Thanks Vinita, I did have a wonderful b'day!
What I meant was that AK deserves all the bullets an AK47 possesses!
Seriously? Why hang the guy?
No not Gandhi-baad but that's state exercised vengeance.
He's literally a kid. Perhaps parole at 50? Could have become a spokesman for peace by then.
yes Faiyaz i did get the `AK47' bit.
Omkar, you must be joking about any leniency to Kasab, he is a hardened criminal, has shown no repentance and is enjoying a secure life with you and me paying Rs.2 lakh per day for it!
He needs stringent punishment no doubt. But almost all developed nations have banned capital punishment. Maybe we can see how/why they chose to ban it as a form of punishment and why it is still here and in a few other countries.
Warmly,
Ranjana
Mostly, being against death sentence, is misconstrued as leniency.
One tends to be lenient towards people who have a chance, and have committed crimes that may be forgiven, of course starting with victims and their kin. Kasab does not seem to warrant that.
But its not about Kasab, we are discussing death sentence, dished out by the State, in this case Bharat Mata, a secular state, a welfare state. Vengeance can't be her wont.
What death sentence does not solve:
a) it can't bring to justice people who are responsible (in part, man's certainly responsible for his/her own actions) to lead Kasab down this path, the conspirators, the religious fanatics filling his head with mumbo-jumbo and finally the anti India ideologists
b) Many other people who commit graver crimes against society, Indian or otherwise, go unpunished everyday. The unscrupulous politicians, the mafiosi, unethical businessmen, the pedophiles, rapists etc. etc. etc. Point being, justice should be equal, just hanging a few once in a while to satiate a popular sentiment.
Interesting thoughts Omkar. I work as closely as I can for people...However concepts like secular Bharat Mata bewilder me. Gujarat 2002 is something I will carry with myself to the grave. Each act of communal violence is a scar I carry of the violence and inhumanity society is capable of. and Kandhamal in Oriss. In case you are keen...I can send you a link of a report we wrote on Kandhamal after talking to many victims or rather survivors. Anyways, your views are indeed refreshing or reassuring! Keep writing.
Thx. for the reply. Your thoughts seem to be very forward looking. I try too ;-)
Anywho, I was talking about the ideals on which the country is based, the implementation (or reality) leaves a lot to be desired. Not only in India, but in many other countries.
But the ideals cannot be let go and nor can we stoop to the some other country's ideals, or actually lack thereof ;-)
And the judiciary, or the legislature, or any arm of the people's representative body should uphold those ideals (welfare and secular state etc.) even in the most trying of circumstances. Otherwise, such bodies would be no different than vigilantes.
At the end of the day, this representative body, cannot, should not, after deliberation, with cool heads put a misguided youth (a human being) who is but a pawn, to death, fully well knowing that many others involved in making such an incident come to pass, are going to go scot free.
An analogy would be like putting to death, one of many rapists, since its his unwanted child that the victim is carrying.
The times remind me of that famous poem by WB Yeats - The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Omkar, do read the report Crossed and Crucified on the Kandhamal violence. Bahut kaam kiya is report pe...have sold out all copies except 60 in English. It was done in Hindi and Oriya too.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15584064/Crossed-and-Crucified
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