The indecency of a secret execution

Between Afzal Guru's hanging at Tihar and the executions of Satwant
Singh and Kehar Singh at the same jail lies a gap of 24 years. In this
time, India has risen tremendously in economic and strategic terms but
the decline in our collective morality is evident in the indecorous
secrecy which has attended the latest execution. When Indira Gandhi's
assassins were hanged on January 6, 1989, the country had still not
emerged from a crippling insurgency in Punjab that had raged through
the State for most of that decade and taken the lives of thousands of
people. Yet, India appeared a far more confident democracy then. The
government of Rajiv Gandhi did not hide the President's rejection of
the mercy petitions of Satwant and Kehar; both men were allowed an
eleventh hour opportunity to contest that rejection in the Supreme
Court. When the court dismissed their petitions, the date of their
execution was made public. Their families were allowed inside the jail
for a final goodbye. As many as 20 members of Kehar Singh's family and
13 of Satwant Singh's family, including his father, were given
permission to meet the condemned men. Though not all of them managed
to get access, at least they were spared the shock of being informed
after the hangings, not to speak of the shabby indecency of a
notification sent through the postal system that reaches two days
later.

By trotting out claims about the threat to law and order in order to
justify keeping Guru's execution under wraps, the government has shown
itself in even poorer light, as if its law-enforcing machinery is
helpless before such threats. Of course that is not true, and it was
used as an excuse. Both in Guru's case and in Ajmal Kasab's, what the
government clearly wanted was a smooth road to the gallows, one that
would be free of legal challenges or a last minute reprieve, such as
the one granted by the Madras High Court to the three death row
convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. But in doing so, the
government has gone against not just all democratic norms but
fundamental human decency. It has also insulted the country's judicial
system, for the secrecy that attended Kasab's hanging succeeded in
taking away from what was otherwise considered a fair trial. The least
the government can do now to make amends for its atrocious behaviour
towards Guru's family is to give them access to his grave in Tihar.
Something can still be salvaged from this shameful episode if the
government is goaded into adopting proper rules for informing the
family members of a condemned man about his impending execution. All
this, of course, pending that day when political India is able to work
up the humanity to abolish the death penalty itself.

The Hindu