Sarabjit Controversy: this Spitting in the Shoes and Pissing in the Cokes has to Stop!

I had read this joke long back in an email forward. It is immaterial who sits on the aisle seat and who was in the window seat, the last line is most material.

Two Pakistanis boarded a flight out of London. One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat. Just before take-off, an Indian sat down in the aisle seat. After take-off, the Indian kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Pakistani in the window seat said, “I need to get up and get a Coke.”

“Don’t get up,” said the Indian. “I’m in the aisle seat. I’ll get it for you.”

As soon as he left, one of the Pakistani picked up the Indian’s right shoe and spat in it.

When the Indian returned with a Coke, the other Pakistani said, “That looks good. I’d really like one, too.” Again, the Indian obligingly went to fetch it. While he was gone, the other Pakistani picked up the Indian’s left shoe and spat in it. When the Indian returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the Indian slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

“Why does it have to be this way?” he asked. “How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes?”

Sarabjit Singh – a supposed “spy” who was named as the one who was instrumental in a bombing in Pakistan – is at the center of a great controversy. He has been given Death Sentence and there are doubts that he is guilty. The kith and kin of the victims of the blast have demanded that he be executed rigth away and have gone on hunger strike.

Meanwhile in an interesting turn of events, the key witness Shaukat Salim has retracted his earlier damning statement and has said that he was made to “pronounce” Sarabjit as the culprit under duress. He had never seen or met him. Police simply brought him in and made Shaukat put that statement out.

Despite the statement, strangely enough Sarabjit Singh’s “own” lawyer in Pakistan says:

Meanwhile, Sarabjit’s lawyer Abdul Rana Hamid told CNN-IBN that Salim’s statements have no value as they were never recorded in court.

Shouldn’t that be the “party-line” of his opposing lawyer? So, is Sarabjit being properly represented?

I am not sure how the British law on Death Sentence has been changed in case of Pakistan, but under the Indian law, Death Sentence can ONLY be given in a case where it has been proved BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF DOUBT that the person to be hanged is the culprit.

Now, in this case that is tooo far from that point.

It is not as if such a miscarriage of justice has NOT happened in India. It has been. I can at least recall one instance – that of Beant Singh and Satwant Singh’s hanging. They both were pronounced guilty in the Indira Gandhi murder case. While Beant Singh was directly involved as in he shot the bullets, but Satwant Singh was pronounced guilty by “deduction”! He had simply taken a vow at his Amrit ceremony in Harmandir Sahib that he will kill Indira Gandhi. Taking vows and killing are two different things. However, the jury of the day could not differentiate between the two and it was blinded ONCE AGAIN by its servility to the politics of the day!

India and Pakistan have long followed the path of lowest existence. “If you can fall that low, you have no freaking idea how low I can go!” seems to be the motto of our competition on the polity front. One of these days this HAS to stop! One of these days we have to say that the value of a human being is MORE than the pleasure of a hatred filled mind. This has to stop…

… this spitting in the shoes and pissing in the cokes! Or Sarabjit Singhs will keep dying for no purpose.