Is death penalty justified?

Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees a person’s right to life and personal liberty. It states that “no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”

So what does this say about sentencing a person to death?

The death penalty is often considered the ultimate denial of human rights. It is punishment in the form of premeditated killing of a human being by the state, done in the name of justice. It violates the right to life as proclaimed both in the Constitution of India as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For decades, there have been ongoing arguments over the abolition of the death penalty. The principal reason for its existence is the premeditated killing of a person. But how does the sentence differentiate it from the very same thing?

The entire idea behind executing murderers is that it is believed that it would deter others from perpetrating the same or similar acts. People’s fear of death would come in the way and this form of punishment would threaten them, thereby reducing the number of potential murders.

The lives of victims should be valued more than the lives of these murderers, their acts of crime diminish the worth of their lives, and therefore, death penalty is justified.

Or so is believed.

Apart from ending a person’s life, the death penalty is no more of deterrence to such people than a sentence of life in prison. The society brutalized by the use of death penalty. It violates a person’s basic right to live and in some cases, may also increase the likelihood of more murder.

Death penalty does not really deter those who commit murders as these people do not expect to be caught in the first place. Differences between a possible execution and life in prison are weighed by these people before they commit such acts.

Rather than executing a person, sentencing them to a life in prison is a more humane way to punish such criminals. Once in prison, such people become less of a threat to the society. So executing them is redundant.

Life sentences without parole ensure that such criminals are never out of prison. This ensures the safety of the society and makes the act of execution useless.

The threat of even the severest punishment will not discourage those who plan their crime and expect to escape detection and arrest. It is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is not premeditate

If some severe punishment can deter crime, then long-term imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime.

Rajiv Gandhi’s three killers have received a temporary reprieve from the Madras High Court on the grounds that it has been painful enough to wait 11 years in prison to await the decision on their death penalty. Mass demonstrations erupted across Tamil Nadu to get the trio a reprieve.

The mercy petition filed by Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, a member of the Khalistan Liberation Force who has been sentenced to death for masterminding a terror attack in New Delhi in 1993, was rejected by the president after an eight-year-long wait. Former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh joined the chorus for reducing the convict’s death sentence to a life term.

Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004. He is still awaiting a decision on his mercy plea. The Jammu & Kashmir government wants to pass a resolution staying his capital punishment.

All these convicts have been in prison long enough to know that this is where they will be spending the rest of their lives, however short that is. Staying in prison, they are not a threat to the society anymore.

But this also does not mean that absurd amounts should be spent on guarding such high-profile prisoners as is the case with Ajmal Kasab. A whopping 11 crore rupees had been spent on guarding Kasab at the Arthur Road jail between March 2009 and September 2010, which is simply ridiculous.

Admittedly, murder, terrorism, treason, and the like are extremely serious offences. But that does not give the state the right to take a person’s life away.