Yakub Memon is a terrorist and he deserves punishment for the heinous crime he committed. 257 people were killed in the 1993 Mumbai blasts and the whole country mourned the loss incurred from this tragedy.
But this does not mean that people can’t have opinions on whether he should be hanged or not. I was appalled to see on my Facebook newsfeed that how people are coining terms like Anti-nationalist for those people who are supporting the mercy plea of Yakub Memon.
Our Supreme court has given a decision and we should respect it. And in no way do i say that those people who have filed the mercy plea or those who support it (including me) are more knowledgeable than the honourable judges who gave their decision. But being a citizen of a free country, aren’t we allowed to have our own opinion based on the information that we have at our disposal?
Agreeing to it or not agreeing to it is completely your choice. But calling someone Anti-Nationalist for their fair opinion isn’t your choice.
I am a nationalist, I feel for the losses of my Indian soldiers who die at the borders protecting our country, I feel broken everytime a terrorist attacks my motherland; but there is a reason why I think that this mercy plea should be considered in spite of all the inhuman crimes committed by Yakub Memon.
Mr. B Raman, who played a vital role in bringing back Yakub Memon to India after the 1993 Bomb blasts, wrote in his unpublished column for Rediff.com,
Further, (Yakub) cooperated with the investigating agencies and assisted them by persuading some other members of the Memon family to flee from the protection of the ISI in Karachi to Dubai and surrender to the Indian authorities. The Dubai part of the operation was coordinated by a senior officer of the IB, who was then on deputation to the ministry of external affairs. Neither the R&AW nor I had any role in the Dubai part of the operation.
So, if Yakub gets hanged, it will certainly act as a deterrent factor for all those criminals who might consider the option of confessing and helping out with the investigation. It might even deter those people who had been lured into these radical groups and now want to return back from it.
We need to understand the mentality of such radical groups and how they succeed in luring people in their agenda. Most of the people who carry out such terror activities are brain washed to believe in a greater good for all their acts. They are forced into believing that their life is too small in front of the bigger cause that they are fighting for. So how come hanging as a punishment is going to make such people afraid from doing what they are doing?
Here if we have one can guy who surrendered (Based on the above mentioned report by B Raman) for the crimes he did, and if he is being given a little concession, then we will make the terrorists more open to the idea of surrendering and co-operating with the government.
When I think of the lives which were lost in the blast and the chaos which was created, I feel emotionally broken. I feel the pain that those families must be feeling who lost their loved ones, and with regard to this, I want Yakub Memon to get the death penalty. But, when I look at the bigger picture, my reasoning forces me to think differently.
Killing one terrorist or two terrorists is not our ultimate goal. We want to eradicate terrorism from its roots. Finish off their whole organization and the whole breed of such radical shitheads. And for that, we need information which can allow us to penetrate through the layers under which they hide. We want to reach out to people like Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, who are the masterminds of such attacks. As I told, these terrorists don’t have the fear of losing their lives. Take example of those terrorists who have created havoc in Gurdaspur, Punjab today. They never came with the intention of walking back safely. They wanted blood and were ready to spill their own for it.
We aim at stopping each and every terrorist activity such as these. And for that we need information. If granting Yakub Memon mercy plea increases the chances of getting more valuable information in future, then it will only lead to a greater good.
