Ajmal Kasab: The Pride of India?

The more I think about it, the prouder I feel that India has chosen not to take the Rambo route to punish the perpetrator of what is undoubtedly one of the most cold-blooded acts of murder in history.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Ajmal Kasab get the severest punishment for his crime, as much as any other Indian. And of course, there have been many times when I have wondered why we are wasting emotional energy, time and money and not just getting on with killing him.

But when viewed from the eyes of the very “civilised way of life” the West has always preached, I think we have demonstrated the epitome of that very way of life. Sure, we may be bungling the execution as usual, in that we could expedite the whole process, make it more efficient, and so mete out punishment as early as possible. But the intent and principle, to my mind, is sound.

I refuse to believe that the US of A has the clout and balls to go into Pakistani territory and conduct a commando operation of this nature, but cannot use the same clout to just give Osama up or force them to cooperate in finding and apprehending him? The episode reeks of a clear intent to find an eliminate Osama with an eye on pandering to popular emotion, especially at a time when the Obama administration is up s**t creek. Not to mention all the obvious questions around what exactly happened that night? How did FOUR choppers come near the home and no one even HEARD them and sounded an alarm for Osama? One of them even crashed in the compound, for chris’ sake! Have the Americans developed stealth technology such that aircraft self-destruct in silence? And no guards, no security, no other casualties????

Shouldn’t the country that preaches civilisation and fundamental rights etc give an account of how they ensured that they made every possible attempt to capture him and bring him to justice?

Sure, we have a lot to learn from the West in terms of national security administration and justice, but it surely doesn’t seem like a one-way street.

What do you think?