The people of India are relieved, and rightly so, after those men who committed the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23 years old Joyti Singh on the night of 16th December 2012, have been brought to justice and will be sent to the gallows after going through the due process of law and fair trial. This was the incident that really shook the conscience of society and literally brought hundreds and thousands of ordinary middle-class people on the streets like nothing could have. Even those people who are opposed to the death penalty as a matter of principle (myself included), would be hard pressed to say that this sentence is not going to bring closure to her family, who have had to undergo such a horrid nightmare. The punishment definitely fits the crime, as long as capital punishment is there on the statute book, those animals deserved no less.
In a remarkable coincidence, another court verdict was delivered in another ghastly gang rape and murder case around the same time. Bilkis Bano was a 19 years old mother of a 3-year-old girl, she was also 20 weeks pregnant with another child. On that fateful day in February 2002, Bilkis Bano was running for her life along with other members of her extended family. A rampaging Hindu mob was pursuing them as part of a systematic anti-Muslim pogrom at that time in Gujarat. How far could she run, where could she hide? Immediately, she's seized upon by the frenzied mob and brutally gang raped thereby killing her unborn child. As though that was not barbaric enough, they also picked up her three years old daughter and smashed the little girl on a nearby boulder. The blood lust didn't end there, they also killed 14 members of her immediate and extended family.
After meandering through the Indian judicial system for 15 years, the Bombay High Court convicted those responsible for the carnage, which also included six policemen. You can imagine the magnitude of the crime. My contention is if the rapists and killers of Joyti Singh could be handed down the death sentence, considering the shocking brutality exhibited, what prevented the court in the Bilkis Bano case from giving similar punishment to those convicted? Instead, they have been awarded life imprisonment. The only difference is that Bilkis has lived to tell the tale and Joyti did not. There were no mitigating circumstances in either case, but different yardsticks have been applied in meting out the punishment.
In a remarkable coincidence, another court verdict was delivered in another ghastly gang rape and murder case around the same time. Bilkis Bano was a 19 years old mother of a 3-year-old girl, she was also 20 weeks pregnant with another child. On that fateful day in February 2002, Bilkis Bano was running for her life along with other members of her extended family. A rampaging Hindu mob was pursuing them as part of a systematic anti-Muslim pogrom at that time in Gujarat. How far could she run, where could she hide? Immediately, she's seized upon by the frenzied mob and brutally gang raped thereby killing her unborn child. As though that was not barbaric enough, they also picked up her three years old daughter and smashed the little girl on a nearby boulder. The blood lust didn't end there, they also killed 14 members of her immediate and extended family.
After meandering through the Indian judicial system for 15 years, the Bombay High Court convicted those responsible for the carnage, which also included six policemen. You can imagine the magnitude of the crime. My contention is if the rapists and killers of Joyti Singh could be handed down the death sentence, considering the shocking brutality exhibited, what prevented the court in the Bilkis Bano case from giving similar punishment to those convicted? Instead, they have been awarded life imprisonment. The only difference is that Bilkis has lived to tell the tale and Joyti did not. There were no mitigating circumstances in either case, but different yardsticks have been applied in meting out the punishment.
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