The final solution

Death penalty seems to be the flavour of the season, with the Cabinet having cleared a move to award capital punishment to those found guilt...

Death penalty seems to be the flavour of the season, with the Cabinet having cleared a move to award capital punishment to those found guilty of transporting RDX and other highly explosive substances. Just last month, the death penalty for rapists was mooted in the wake of the gang rape of four nuns in Madhya Pradesh. This quickfix approach to criminal justice speaks more of desperation rather than the cool-headed tackling of what are universally recognised as heinous and dangerous crimes. The home ministry8217;s anxiety is, of course, understandable, considering the evidence on hand.

Security forces were reported to have recovered 51,810 kg of explosives to date. According to home secretary B.P. Singh, the deadly RDX accounts for an estimated 43,000 kg.

But the questions remain: how effective will such punishment prove to be? Won8217;t the arbitrary use of capital punishment, which requires to be deployed in the rarest of rare cases for it to be effective, prove counter-productive? Will it in any way detercriminals determined to achieve their nefarious ends? It would be useful here to consider the plot hatched by Amir Amanullah Khan and his seven-member squad assigned to eliminate Home Minister L. K. Advani during his election campaign in Coimbatore early this year.

Recent investigations have revealed that these men were actually highly motivated suicide bombers, in police parlance they were 8220;belt-and-throw8221; types, more than willing to lay down their lives to achieve their political ends. As it happened, two of them died in those February 14 bomb blasts. To expect the prospect of capital punishment to deter such single-minded assassins would be simplistic in the extreme.

In a crime like rape, as has been pointed out time and again, it is not the severity of the punishment but the certainty of punishment that deters potential rapists. There8217;s little point in waving the hangman8217;s noose before their faces while at the same time neglecting to apprehend them. But this is precisely what has happened in thecase of rape.

The great majority of rapists get away because the police and the courts are just not geared to apprehending and punishing them, as any raped woman who has had to file an FIR or testify in court knows. Not surprisingly, there are hardly any convictions made because of the appalling lack of evidence. Tackling the rapist would ideally require the setting up of security systems for vulnerable women and the reorientation of the criminal justice system to ensure that these cases are taken up as quickly as possible. It8217;s the same logic that applies while dealing with the terrorist too.

It is only the certainty of being apprehended that could possibly deter the potential terrorist. Bringing in stringent punishment of various kinds, while neglecting to plug the foxholes and improve overall security, could prove a self-defeating exercise. This sudden recourse to capital punishment as the panacea for all ills cannot but recall the Queen in Through the Looking Glass. She rushes around shouting,8220;Off with his/her head!8221; But no one is really impressed.