“ Men are not hanged for stealing horses but that horses are not stolen”
George Savile
Capital punishment, which is the infliction of the death penalty on criminals, has always been highly controversial, with different people holding different views. In a democracy, there is nothing wrong in expressing your views. Everyone has his or her opinion which we should respect. In this context, Pravind Jugnauth, the leader of the MSM party and a prime minister in the waiting, should be congratulated for having expressed his thoughts on this issue. At least, he has had the courage to affirm during a recent press conference that himself and his friends are seriously envisaging to reintroduce the death penalty in our legal system as a means to solve the acute problem of law and order in the country.
Of course, he has been very specific on the types of offences he wishes capital punishment to be applied, that is exclusively on people having committed murder, gang rape and drug trafficking .
Obviously, those against the death penalty , like the director of Amnesty International in Mauritius, as well, have their opinion which we should respect. Like them, other leaders, too, have their views on this issue but what is tragic is that some of them are scared of expressing their opinion for fear of losing political mileage. Unless, they don’t have any opinion, especially politicians!
Never than before, the crime culture has become a new phenomenon these days. Almost everyday crimes are on the rise as though they are daily occurrences to the extent of having reached an intolerable limit. Not only locals but even tourists are not spared.
We should take immediate actions until the situation deteriorates further. The authorities should take rigid measures and the reintroduction of the death penalty maybe one of the means as propounded by Pravind Jugnauth.
Actually when people are found guilty of murder, gang rape or drug trafficking, to the maximum, they are sent to jail. The other day, a person gave details during his intervention on Radio Plus regarding the treatment these offenders are subjected to: good food at different meal times, a radio to each prisoner, cigarettes, health care, dental check-up and a host of other royal treatments. It is estimated that a prisoner costs around Rs150000 to the government per year, which makes a total of Rs12500 per month - obviously, the tax payers money. Our respect for human rights compels us to provide them with proper food- chicken, fish and meat almost everyday along with proper shelter and proper clothing. Though, they have committed atrocious crimes on innocent people like the case of a two and a half year old girl raped and killed by three persons, two sisters in Lallmatie having sustained 60 stab wounds or recently the case involving a certain Cannibal and his acolyte Mangouste. We still have to respect them because of the fact that they are human beings.
Paradoxically, any law abiding citizen be it a labourer or a factory worker, who has been contributing to the economy of the country during his or her lifetime, receives hardly Rs30000 a year inclusive of the end of the year bonus. How come that criminals are given five star treatments to the detriment of law abiding citizens? Somebody told me the other day that we could have executed those criminals and used the money spent on them to pay the examination fees of our SC and HSC students. But, then, we should respect the rights of these citizens of the republic, otherwise, the Amnesty International will be accusing us of barbarism.
Of course, we need to protect our law abiding citizens and probably the death penalty can act as a deterrent on potentially violent offenders for whom the threat of imprisonment is no sufficient restraint. Cannibal was, 10 years back, involved in the rape and murder of his own niece but once out, instead of being rehabilitated, he committed another atrocious crime- a solid example to defy those people who still believe in providing an opportunity to criminals to repent, to regret or else to improve their character. Even his elder brother declared in a weekly newspaper that Cannibal should be hanged because he is a beast.
Any country should spare no effort to protect its law abiding citizens from such beasts. Capital punishment can be regarded as an effective means of maintaining law and order. It is not without any reason that this form of punishment is to be found, in the USA, the richest and most powerful country of the world. Unless, some people consider Americans as barbares! Even Singapore uses it as a weapon to dissuade people from bringing drugs to the country and, above all, deterring any form of crime, even electronic ones and this has made of it almost a crime-free country, the real tiger of the Indian Ocean. Ask any Singaporian about his idea on the death penalty and they would tell you it is meant for criminals, not law abiding citizens. Evidently, capital punishment is a strong tool to maintain social stability and economic prosperity with freedom of movement guaranteed to the population in democracies like the USA and Singapore. Even in China, the market of the world, capital punishment is used to punish harden criminals. Pravind Jugnauth, is right when he says that the death penalty should be reintroduced. Drug dealers are mass killers of young people who represent the backbone of tomorrow’s society. Hundreds of Mauritians are already victims of these unscrupulous people to whom death occurs to others and not to them or their nears and dears. What about child abusers/ pedophiles like Michel Dutroux of Belgium? Can justice be rendered to so many children whom he raped and killed? Is there any person which can reform Thomas Titley, the serial rapist and killer in England? Even the judge who condemned Steve Wright for the murder of five girls last week considered life imprisonment as insufficient to punish him.
What about terrorists, who through their activities very often attack and kill innocent persons? The 11th September attack in the USA resulted in the death of more than 3000 victims, all innocent persons; the 11th march attack in Madrid cost the lives of more than 300 people; the 7th July attack in Mumbai killed around 200 train passengers without forgetting the explosion occurring in Bali and which has spelt the death of the tourism industry in that region?
With the problems faced by the sugar and textile industries these days, more than ever, we should depend on the tourism sector. Last year, we reached around 907,000 tourists with a total of some Rs 40 billion revenue from this industry. If we want to protect this important pillar of the economy, we need to provide safety and security to the visitors. We cannot accept repeated attacks on them. Some time back, out of ten cases of attack, six were against tourists! Our target is to attain 2 million tourists, very far from 9 million tourists in Singapore.. Any person, with a sensible mind, will tell you that we need to guarantee their safety. With the actual state of affairs, nothing will deter hoodlums from causing harm to our tourism sector.
We need to take actions and capital punishment maybe one of them. It is not a case of punishing the criminals but making them think twice before they commit hard offences.
Dev Jhug