Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Ban death penalty?) that was published in Newsband

Ban death penalty?

Here are the views of those who oppose death penalty:

Executing a killer is not a justice; it is an act of vengeance. Death Penalty is considered as a barbaric act and is abolished in 110 countries in the world. According to International Law, the death penalty is inhuman and a criminal act. The Civilized Society will never accept the brutal punishment of the Death Penalty and other forms of Capital Punishment.

The international community have a wide consensus over reformative justice rather than retributive justice. The purpose is to re-integrate the offender to the society. While the feeling of revengefulness is understandable at the individual level, it is not a noble emotion that can be given social sanction. Even for an individual, getting over the feeling of revengefulness contributes to spiritual upliftment.

Capital punishment is not justified and the entire World, including India, need to abolish. If A murdered B, C cannot be empowered for “Planned Cold-Blood Murder of A through Capital Punishment. If the human being cannot give life, he/she has no Right to take away Life.”

One should agree with the broad philosophical justification for abolition of capital punishment and should debate the issue without any pre-conceived notions.

In order to be human beings, death penalty should be got rid of. Solitary confinement can replace death penalty. Death penalty only depicts a barbaric form of punishment which only uncivilized societies follow. We ought not to allow future generations look back and say that our ancestors used to eliminate individuals to stop prevent crime which is the crudest form of punishment that could be meted out.

Taking away the life of a person in the name of punishment is uncalled for. Stringent punishment should be awarded to such voyeurs of terrorism by giving them life to realize their crimes. It’s time that all nations in the world abolished corporal punishment and showed the path of peace and harmony without indulging into bloody vengeance themselves.

Let us do away with this appalling and barbaric system of punishment, irrespective of the cause, the nature, or the enormity of the crime. Our judicial system is capable of better behavior than a mass murderer. The subjectivity and the "animal spirits" associated with the death penalty are truly scary. Let there be no unnatural death.

Terrorists are not born; they are created by soul-crushing poverty, the injustices that they witness, and the world's inability to provide a liveable life for a majority of the people. May good sense prevail. As much as terrorist's acts are inexcusable, so is the hangman's noose, which probably conceals more than it reveals. It is easy to hang one person rather than ask: Why is it that young people put their lives on the line? Under what conditions does death, or killing others, become preferable over life itself?

For all our claims of being the land of Buddha and Gandhi - the land of ahimsa - it is a shame that we practice capital punishment. What one cannot give, one cannot take.