Should They Be Hanged?

The culprits of the Delhi rape case are going to be sentenced on Friday afternoon.  “Hang them!” is the public sentiment.  Their act resulted in the death of an innocent girl.  Everyone wants to see them dead.

Normally I would oppose death penalty on the grounds that two wrongs do not make a right.  But this time it is different.  The magnitude of the crime committed is unimaginable.  Hence I would oppose the death penalty for these sub-human creeps for totally different reasons.

My question is, is the death penalty sufficient for such criminals?  They will be hung.  They will die in a maximum of a minute or two.  The suffering and agony will be over in a short span of time.  They will not have to face the public after that.   Unlike a rape victim who is subjected to so much of shame and scrutiny by society, they won’t have to live through public humiliation although they are the criminals .  They won’t have to live to regret their actions.  So what is the point behind killing them?

I wish we had some medieval laws for the culprits of rape.  They should be castrated, have their hands and feet chopped off and thrown out on the streets at the mercy of the public, left to starve.  They should have to fear being tortured in the same way they did their victims by other perverts stalking the streets, they should know agony, fear, humiliation, indignity.  They should face all the horrors they heaped on their victims.  This is the only punishment that would work in our country.

Alternatively, they should be whipped publicly everyday till they die.  I know this sounds downright retrograde and cruel, but is any punishment sufficient for what they did to their victim?

“Accused persons adopted a unique modus operandi to do the acts,” additional sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna said in his judgement.

“They, besides causing external bodily injuries, inserted the rods in abdomen of the victim. They did this act repeatedly and pulled out internal organs even by their hands…” the court noted.

The judge also observed, “The important aspect of this trial is the manner in which both rods and hands were used for damaging the alimentary canal and pulling it out from the body (of the girl).

“This act of complete destruction of the most vital parts of the body can never be termed as intending to cause bodily injuries and rather it will be act done with intention of causing death.”

The court noted that the accused were acting in a premeditated manner and deceived the victims into boarding the bus thinking it is going towards their destination and then humiliated and gang-raped the girl.

After her body became devoid of any resistance, iron rods and hands were inserted into the abdominal cavity, the court noted.

The judgement against the culrpit was not yet out and the media went beserk with the news of yet another gang rape of a young woman – a photojournalist on an assignment – in Mumbai.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rapists-should-get-life-term-for-ruining-my-life-Victim/articleshow/22015011.cms?

Obviously this was not the first time for these criminals as the following link proves.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hang-my-rapists-Mumbai-girl-says/articleshow/22496988.cms

Day in and day out one hears and reads about rapes, molestations (often coyly referred to as eve-teasing), acid attacks on women and the like.  These are only the reported cases.  How many cases go unreported?  How many never get heard about because some heavy weights are involved and the case is hushed up?  Is it surprising then that we end up with a culture where many parents do not want daughters and choose to selectively terminate the lives of female fetuses?  Of course this affects the gender ratio leading to a vicious cycle where for want of sufficient girls, crimes against women only rises further.

In the light of all this, only the most stringent punishment will be sufficient for people who commit such horrendous crimes against humanity.

But sadly enough, this is just wishful thinking and will not happen.  So the least I can hope is that they will be locked away in isolated cells to starve slowly to death and the key to their cells should be thrown away.

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