While this is entirely plausible given the record of US intelligence agencies, there is another aspect of the American refusal to extradite which we must not run away from. It has to do with the fact that the Indian legal system is slow, laborious, and prone to corruption. Cases drag on for years and years, and often end up in acquittals because of witnesses being unwilling to come forward and depose against dreaded gangsters and terrorists. Even when punishment is meted out, it is often not enough to deter criminals.
The Americans, on the other hand, mete out swift justice, and where guilt is proved, punishment is hard and deterring. American investigators have already indicated that Headley could be handed out a sentence of up to 300 years imprisonment. If that be so, it is ridiculous to say that Headley could be extradited after completion of his sentence in the US.
In the famous President John F. Kennedy assassination case, the man who killed the alleged assassin of the then President was sentenced to 500 years in prison. In India, though the Supreme Court has ruled in a 2005 judgement that life imprisonment must mean the remaining life of the convict, in effect most convicts are released after putting in 14 years, with commutation for good conduct.
Oddly, even those charged with offences relating to subversion often get away with no conviction or relatively light sentences due to lack of evidence and failure of the prosecution.
There was the classic case of a former alleged Khalistani terrorist who was extradited from the US in 2006 after a 12-year effort but was set free in April 2008 in all the three murder cases registered against him by Punjab police. Khalistan Commando Force activist Kulbir Singh Barapind alias Kulbira was acquitted by a Jalandhar court for want of evidence.
What was embarrassing for the Punjab police was that it failed to provide conclusive evidence before the court during trial against Kulbir Singh. In one case, he was charged with killing three brothers and the wife of one of them in a village near Jalandhar in September 1992. The family of the victims could not identify Kulbir Singh as the killer.
In another, Kulbir Singh was charged for the murder of former Akali Dal legislator from Banga, 45 km from Jalandhar, and three others in 1992. Here also, the case fell for want of evidence. He was acquitted in a third murder case in Phillaur as well.
Though there were cases against the alleged terrorist under TADA, the Punjab police could not pursue those as it had given in writing to the US courts that he would not be tried under any special law (like TADA) after his extradition.
Likewise, there have been cases of terror suspects extradited from Dubai to stand trial in cases of terrorism being acquitted because the prosecution case collapsed on the judge’s scrutiny in court.
The cold reality is that the shocking weakness of our criminal justice system allows dreaded terrorists to go scot-free for lack of evidence since protection to witnesses is inadequate and judges can be intimidated.
It is common knowledge that supercop K.P.S. Gill’s success in virtually banishing terrorism from Punjab soil was largely attributable to the large number of terrorists his police killed in ‘encounters’ which everyone knew were fake. During the height of terrorism in Punjab there was not a single conviction for terrorism because of the scare that terrorists had created around them.
Virtually the same situation prevails in Andhra where activists of the People’s War Group invariably go free even if they are nabbed by the police, because of the fear they evoke.
It is indeed not uncommon for ‘fake encounters’ to be staged by police to eliminate activists who would otherwise not be brought to justice.
The Mumbai bomb blasts case of 1993 was a high-profile case. That it took 13 years for even a special court to pronounce its judgment was in itself a sad commentary on our judicial system and our prosecuting apparatus.
With such inordinate delay in such an important case the message that goes out is of a soft state that is ill-prepared to deal with terror and terrorists.
Indeed, a part of the reason that the two principal suspects – Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon – are sitting pretty in Pakistan (they sneak out to other destinations only to return there), leading a life of opulence and grandeur, is the failure to complete the process of justice for such a long time.
India’s entreaties to the western world to put pressure on Pakistan to hand over Dawood would arguably have carried much greater weight had the conviction come about in proper time.
More than 29,000 people have died in terror attacks in India between 1994 and 2009. And all the perpetrators who were convicted for the dastardly acts are biding time in different jails at the expense of the taxpayers.
Chief public prosecutor in the Special Court for the 1993 blasts trial Ujjwal Nikam summed up the anguish of millions of Indians when he said: “It would be a mockery of justice if the death penalty is not imposed.”
Nikam was speaking after three convicts in the Mumbai serial blasts were given death sentence.
His anguish stemmed from the fact that India was yet to execute a single death sentence awarded to a terror convict despite the fact that from January 2004 to March 2007, the death toll from terror attacks in the country was 3,674, second only to that in Iraq during the same period.
The government has set up special anti-terror courts for speedy trial in cases relating to terror attacks, but once convicted the perpetrators move higher courts and claim clemency from the President. According to a statement by Home Minister P Chidambaram, 28 clemency petitions are pending with the President’s office and each one is considered according to its serial number.
Mohammad Afzal Guru, convicted for the attack on Parliament in 2001, is one among many terror convicts, serving death row, who have appealed to the President for clemency. He was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004 and the sentence was scheduled to be carried out on October 20, 2006 but it was stayed. Subsequently, a mercy petition was filed which is still pending.
Likewise, one of the assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Nalini, is languishing in jail for the last 18 years with the death sentence passed on her awaiting the outcome of the mercy petition to the President.
One cannot but recognize that the criminal justice system needs an overhaul so that terrorists and hardened criminals do not get away due to the fear psychosis they create. At the same time, it is vital that justice be meted out swiftly and effectively with adequate deterrent against future transgressions of law.
Source: The Tribune, Chandigarh, India.
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