Yakub hanging: Show similar commitment in terror cases, says Digvijaya Singh

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh fired the first salvo, saying that the BJP-led government should show “similar commitment” in all cases of terror as it showed in the case of Yakub Memon. Another Congress MP, Shashi Tharoor, said he was “saddened” by the news that “our government has hanged a human being”, but did not support Mr Singh’s stand. The Congress Party too tried to distance itself from Digvijay Singh’s remarks. “State-sponsored killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too”. “But cold-blooded execution has never prevented a terror attack anywhere”, he added. Be liberal secular and modern. “It is clear from their statements today that they are insulting peace-loving people who want to get rid of terrorism”. Shun hatred and violence. “We expect Sonia Gandhi to clarify before the nation”, he said.

Party colleague and former union minister Shashi Tharoor said he was “saddened” by Memon’s execution. “Whether he (Yakub) had to be hanged or not was not to be decided by the government but the court, and the president uses his judgement after that”, he said.

Trying to control the damage, Tharoor claimed he was not commenting on the merits of a specific case hinting he is not opposing Yakub’s hanging and he is against the concept of death sentence. Raja, meanwhile, said that the death penalty should be done away with in the country. More than 100 countries have abolished it and India should do the same, he added.

Similarly, during 1990-2000, even though about 8 people were executed, the incidence of murder increased from 35,045 to 37,399. No correlation, the Kerala MP said.

“I am rather shocked with the weird statement, and if it’s true what Mr. Tharoor has tweeted, can terrorism remain sans politics?”

He said his views were not specifically about execution of Yakub but he opined that today, in his eyes, what the Indian state has done is no different than what terrorists did in Mumbai in 1993 – taken a life.

Emphasising that death penalty does not actually deter an individual from committing an offence, Tharoor cited various studies to demand that the death penalty should be abolished. Prasad also noted Supreme Court’s exceptional hearing at 3 AM, in which it rejected Memon’s lawyers’ last-minute attempt to stay his hanging.