Kasab’s execution is not enough

Saswat Panigrahi

Kasab hanged — India woke up to this news last Wednesday morning and citizens heaved a sigh of relief.

It took exactly four years to complete the ‘due process of law’ and execute the lone surviving 26/11 terrorist. Kasab was prosecuted, convicted, given a chance to plead for mercy and finally executed after the President rejected his mercy plea. All this despite — as some argue — him not deserving a full-fledged trial.

Kasab and nine other jihadis brought a gory tale to life with blood in the city of Mumbai, snuffing out the lives of 166 innocent people and wounding more than 300.

Many say the butcher of Mumbai should have been hanged in public, but the Government chose to execute him under a cloak of secrecy in Pune’s Yerwada Jail and revealed the news only after he breathed his last.

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Present tense, future uncertain

Saswat Panigrahi

The BJP has yet again stood by beleaguered party president Nitin Gadkari, whose business affairs related to Purti Group have been the subject of wild speculation in sections of the media.

The BJP core group insists that there was “no legal or moral wrongdoing” by Gadkari and the party has full faith in his leadership. This, after RSS ideologue and chartered accountant S Gurumurthy cleared the BJP president of the charges of alleged business wrongdoing in an internal audit. Gurumurthy had reportedly been asked by the RSS to study the balance sheet of Gadkari-owned Purti Power and Sugar Limited.

The development came in the wake of veteran lawyer and party’s Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani pressing for the resignation of Gadkari with the apparent backing of some senior leaders including Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha. Earlier Jethmalani’s son, Mahesh Jethmalani, quit the party’s National Executive as a mark of protest.

Read the full article in www.niticentral.com