07 August,2009 07:50 AM IST | | Amit Kumar
2003 Mumbai twin blasts trio were sentenced to death on Thursday. But no terror convict has ever been executed in the country Victim speaks: MS Bitta
They are reckless, remorseless and ruthless. And they strike at will. When they are nabbed and convicted and sometimes handed a death sentence, it is never carried out and we wait for yet another terror attack to take place. Then, we repeat the notoriously staggering legal process all over agsain.
More than 29,000 people have died in terror attacks in India between 1994 and 2009. And all the perpetrators who were convicted for the dastardly acts are biding time in different jails at the expense of the taxpayers.
Chief public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam summed up the anguish of millions of Indians when he said: "It would be a mockery of justice if the death penalty is not imposed."
Nikam was speaking after three convicts in the 2003 Mumbai serial blasts were given death sentence by a special anti-terror court on Thursday.
His anguish stems from the fact that India is yet to execute a single death sentence awarded to a terror convict despite the fact that from January 2004 to March 2007, the death toll from terror attacks in the country was 3,674, second only to that in Iraq during the same period.
The government has set up special anti-terror courts for speedy trial in cases relating to terror attacks, but once convicted the perpetrators move higher courts and claim clemency from the President. According a recent statement by then Home Minister P Chidambaram, 28 clemency petitions are pending with the President's office and each one is considered according to its serial number.
Mohammad Afzal Guru, convicted for the attack on Parliament in 2001, is one among many terror convicts, serving death row, who have appealed to the President for clemancy.
Senior security expert and head SATP a portal on terrorism and Institute of Conflict Management Ajai Sahni said after every terrorist activity a number of agencies analyse the damage through their own perspective and therefore it is difficult to compile concrete details or data.
"We are trying to get data from the judiciary. Most of these cases fall flat because terrorist crimes hardly reach prosecution stage," Sahni said.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai terror verdict has whipped up another round of political skirmishes between the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP. While the BJP took potshots at the UPA for going soft on terror and mocking the alleged inability of the government to execute death sentence to terror convicts, Mohd Afzal Guru in particular.u00a0 "The mercy petition file of Afzal Guru has been pending for the last four years with the Delhi government. The Union government is also not showing any urgency on the issue either," senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra told MiD DAY.
He said India should send out a message to the world that it was firm and serious in its stand against terrorism. "We must show that we are ready to give a befitting reply to the terrorists. Otherwise, the death sentences to culprits of the 2003 Mumbai blasts will keep hanging in balance," Malhotra said.
The Congress chose to tread cautiously on the issue. "The law will take its own course. Even a terrorist has the right to appeal against his conviction," party spokesperson Satyavart Chaturvedi told MiD DAY.
Chaturvedi admitted however that there is an urgent need to revamp the entire legal process. "We should review the legal procedures that go in convicting and executing special criminals like a terrorist," he said.
'A mockery of justice'
It is nothing short of mockery of justice, feels President of All India Anti-terrorist Front Maninder Jeet Singh Bitta. The former youth Congress president, who was attacked by terrorists in 1993, said even after the highest court of the land ratifies the death sentence to a terror convict it takes years for the government to execute it.
"I salute those fearless judges who deliver such judgments. They are likely to become soft targets for various terrorist groups," he told MiD DAY.
"The Supreme Court awarded the death sentence to my attacker Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar in 2002 but his mercy petition is still pending with the President of India for the last seven years," Bitta said.Bhullar was sentenced to death by a designated court in 2001 under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987 (TADA) after being found guilty of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the Youth Congress Office in Delhi, which led to the deaths of many.
The number of those who died due to terrorist violence is much bigger than those who died during Independence struggle. "Around 36,000 people were killed during the Punjab militancy only.u00a0 About 40,000-50,000 died in Jammu and Kashmir while Assam has seen more than 15,000 deaths as a result of terrorist violence. Till date successive governments have treated terrorism as a poll issue, nothing more," said Bitta.
