CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ; The Assam Tribune; Letters to the Editor; 19th August, 2004

Sir,

It refers to the article "Do we need capital punishment?" by Kirity B Nandy (AT, August 12) where he has stressed upon the fact that rigorous life imprisonment should replace capital punsihment.

There are certain crimes for which life-imprisonment is best suited but that doesn't imply that capital punishment should be totally abolished.

Death sentence to Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the rapist and murderer of Hetal Pareek would be a great lesson for thousands of rapists existing in our society.

Abolition of capital punishment would give birth to hundreds of Dhananjoys and thousands of Hetal Pareeks would beome the helpless victims of their lust.

It is useless to shower sympathy on such criminals. Reforming a criminal is practically not possible in today's society. We are no longer living in the Vedic Age, when a murderer like Ratnakar tranformed himself into a saint.

Though a life-prisoner carries the tag of punishment throughout his life, life imprisonment however rigorous, can't be an effective detterent to the would-be criminals.
Death is something which can unnerve anyone and thus death-sentence is the appropriate punishment for the murderers and rapists. We are living in a society where crimes against women are increasing rapidly. Capital punishment would be the best lesson for those who harm the dignity of women. It would help to reduce the cases of rape, molestation, dowry death, etc. Thus capital punishment is justified for certain type of serious crimes. Moreover, if a murderer can take the life of a person, why can't the former be deprived of his life?

Yours etc.,

Monalisa Biswas,

Rehabari, Guwahati