Kasab Hanged: Justice served, but lets not rejoice please

Ajmal Kasab is dead.  Hanged until death in a secret execution which was completed in 15 minutes.  The decision to hang Kasab was taken on Nov and within two weeks, it was executed.  Pakistan was informed of the hanging, but as is its tradition, the country’s Government made no demand to get the body back.  (They has treated their dead soldiers after Kargil the same way).  Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said:

“Pakistan has been informed but there is no demand for Kasab’s body. The president rejected Kasab’s mercy petition on November 5. I had further forwarded it to the Maharashtra government on November 8 and it was finalised on that day that Kasab would be hanged Nov 21 at 7.30 am.”

Shinde also made a point to note that Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Singh were also not informed about this.  Such was the secrecy.  Dr. Singh one can understand, but why was it important to tell Sonia – we non-Congressis will never know!

After the hanging, Kasab was buried in Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail premises itself, where he was shifted two days back for execution from Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail.  He was quiet and nervous before his hanging and read his prayers.  But his final words were profound.

“I swear by God, won’t do such a thing again (Allah kasam dubara aisi galti nahi karunga)”, were the last words uttered by him

From Palestine to Pakistan, poor and innocent are used as canon fodder in the crooked but a persistent past time of the Islamic world’s majority population – by proxy or directly – Jihad!  Kasab was an unwilling victim of that obsession of these populations, which have destruction of its enemy as its aim, even when the other guy has really not instigated it, except for the error of existing and having a belief different from these fanatics!

Kasab was close to his mother and wanted the authorities to tell his family, specially his mother.  “Tell my Ammi”, he had requested.  The Indian High Commission in Islamabad, had sent a letter to his mother through courier on Tuesday, fulfilling his last desire.

Kasab was from a village in Faridkot, roughly 370 kms South east of Islamabad.

No matter what that young – Kasab was 21 during the Mumbai attacks – guy went through and paid for his life (after, of course, taking so many innocent ones) – his own people, for apparently lofty and hate-filled ideals he did all this have disowned him!  When the press people went to his village they were manhandled and the villagers simply denied that Ajmal Kasab was theirs.

Not just that, the villagers went into an anti-India tirade overdrive:

“This is a conspiracy against Pakistan. India deliberately implicated Pakistan to get it declared a terrorist state,” said landlord Muhammad Zaman, 50.

Ghulab Khan, 70 and unemployed, suggested Pakistan should respond tit-for-tat. “Pakistan should also hang an Indian incarcerated in a Pakistani jail,” he told AFP.

Their village kid has been executed for having killed scores of innocent people in a faraway land.  And what’s the best they can come up with?  Hang another innocent Indian who have been captured while they strayed into Pakistani border from border regions and now put in their jails!

The ignorance, the hatred, the negativity of Pakistan sometimes can truly astonish even those who have the greatest trust in goodness of mankind!

The reaction of the Jihadis – Lashkar-e-Tayyaiba and the Taliban was predictably shrill and negative.

A senior commander of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, which India blames for the assault on Mumbai, called Kasab a hero and said he would inspire more attacks.

“To die like Kasab is the dream of every fighter,” the commander told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The Pakistan Taliban said they were shocked by the hanging.

“There is no doubt that it’s very shocking news and a big loss that a Muslim has been hanged on Indian soil,” Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters.

Meanwhile the kith and kin of the 26/11 victims and those who survived the attack, felt that justice had been served.

Attack survivor Vishnu Zende, who was working at Mumbai’s train station where nearly 60 people were killed, said the execution brought it all back.

“When I heard the news of Kasab’s execution today, I remembered those horrifying moments of the attack,” Zende said.

“My eyes were filled with tears.”

No Need to Rejoice

While feeling vindicated from justice being served is fine, execution of anyone, even your enemy and someone who did as heinous crimes as Kasab is no occassion to rejoice.  Let us have a bit of grace.

Kasab should have been served the sentence, as should be done to Afzal Guru as well.  But killing Kasab is no solution to what happened during those days of Mumbai attacks.  That was shameful and sad.  And the closure should ONLY come when people in Pakistan’s ISI and Army – who hatched the idea and executed it, which creating a force of poor brainwashed people as canon fodder – are executed publicly.

Revenge is not a good thing, but revenge needs to be served to the right people.

Evil should NEVER be tolerated beyond a point, or else it becomes the new normal.

Tolerating and Punishing Evil

There is a very instructive story from Mahabharat, which explains this best.  It is the story of Shishupal and Krishna.

Shishupal was the cousin of lord Krishna. He was born with three eyes and four arms.

This was the major concern for the mother. She approached Lord Krishna for the help along with the Shishupal. When lord Krishna held the Shishupal  in his lap, all of a sudden the Shishupal become normal as his extra eye and pair of arm vanished. The mother was very happy but at the same time she remembered warning given by the sage that the person who will be responsible for the Shishupal’s normalcy will also be the cause of his death in future.Mother of Shishupal begged Lord Krishna for the mercy. Krishna promised to forgive Shishupal’s 100 sins only. The time progressed. Shishupal became young. His friend was Rukmi. He wanted to marry his sister Rukmini, who was incarnation of goddess Lakshmi. But Rukmini wanted to marry Lord Krishna. This was the major cause of Shishupal’s rivalry with Lord Krishna. Once Yagya was organized by Yudhishter in which he invited all the mighty kings. When Yudhishter was about to welcome Lord Krishna, Shishpal started insulting Lord Krishna. In a moment he became unstoppable. On the otherhand Lord Krishna was counting every sin Shishupal was making by abusing him. When the total reached 100, Lord Krishna invoked his Sudarshan Chakra and killed Shishupal.In his previous birth Shishupal was King Ravana of Lanka who was again killed by another incarnation of Lord Vishnu, Rama.

It is not as if Krishna could not have taken the 101th abuse as well, but he chose to draw a line.  You cannot let someone go on in his evil ways simply because the victim is quiet and not reacting.  Just as one shouldn’t hurt someone unnecessarily, one shouldn’t keep taking evil’s ways for long without appropriate response.

So, killing Kasab is fine, but the real targets in ISI and Pak Army need to be neutralized!

Meanwhile, let us rest this situation and move on, hoping that in his next life, Kasab can do something more intelligent.  It is the larger evil in the Pakistani establishment that needs to be worked at, and the Government of the day should work their damndest best to find a way to do it.