Letters to the Editor - The Hindu - August 20, 2004 - Female lynchers must be treated as victims?

So, these women resort to vigilante justice by lynching the accused, Mr. Akku Yadav, when he comes for an open hearing at a Nagpur Court. Women activists in India, then enacted a farcical charade of the judicial process by not only condoning and justifying a cold-blooded murder, but even went several steps ahead to demand that these women accused be treated as victims. Where on earth can one find such a chutzpah to kill a defenceless human-being (whatever be his personal credentials) and then claim the perpetrators to be victims of the killed victim? I decried such a vigilante justice, which is sadly increasing in India for want of timely reforms in the already overburdened and logjammed criminal justice system.

Published in The Hindu, National Edition, dated August 20, 2004.

* * *

Sir, — The women protesters in Nagpur have blatantly interfered with the judicial process by asking the judicial magistrate to grant bail to the five women accused of lynching Akku Yadav in an open court. Vigilante justice has no place in a democracy. It is sheer chutzpah on the part of women activists to claim that the five women be treated as victims.

Rex S. Arul,
Georgia, U.S.

* * *

http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/20/stories/2004082001481002.htm

Letters to the Editor - The Hindu - August 6, 2004 - West Bengal Government executes Chatterjee.

That I am never a fan of death-penalty is known to many of my friends and relatives. After almost a decade of de facto moratorium on executions, the West Bengal Government got it through to hang Dhananjoy Chatterjee. His impoverished parents and wife (with whom he had hardly stayed for a week before being cast into incarceration forever as a death-row convict) had staged every fast they could to get a clemency for Mr. Chatterjee and they failed. By executing Mr. Chatterjee, the society had only created fresh victims of the convict's family.

Published in The Hindu, National Edition, dated August 6, 2004.

* * *

Sir, — In the name of administering justice to Dhananjoy's victim, we have only heaped injustice on his family.

Rex S. Arul,
Georgia, U.S.

* * *

http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/06/stories/2004080601291001.htm