Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Are Criminals tougher than Law?' that was published in Newsband

Are Criminals tougher than Law?

Chhota Rajan returns to India after 27 years. But he now got an image of a ‘patriotic don’ because of his opposition to Dawood Ibrahim. But crime has no role in a democratic society. Assistance extended by Rajan to Indian agencies were the tactics of a desperado to survive in the criminal world and not because he regretted all his past crimes.

Both Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan grew up in Mumbai’s lower middle class colonies. Both started with petty crime and then joined hands to build India’s most powerful crime syndicate. They managed to develop long tentacles in Indian politics, business and police forces and form such a powerful crime syndicates that they had a corrosive effect on the Indian state. But are their tentacles longer than the long arm of the law?

Chota Rajan is trying to drive home the point that he has changed his mind and become a patriotic person loyal to the country. Another factor that can save him death sentence is the nexus of politicians, gangsters, terrorists and media. It is left to be seen now whether the judiciary, media and civil society will accord the same treatment to Rajan as was given to different terrorists. The civil society will definitely ask for reduction of punishment to a misguided criminal.

Should Rajan escape the due punishment for him, that is, death by hanging, just because he is helping the intelligence agencies to either capture or eliminate Dawood? There is no denying the fact that Dawood is India's Most Wanted and any assistance by anybody in eliminating his threat should be gratefully acknowledged.

If you see from one angle you will get the idea that with a large number of candidates for Parliament and Legislative assemblies having criminal records Rajan is just one among the many. Unless the criminalization of politics is taken care of nothing will change even if Rajan is made a scapegoat.

The circumstances that led to the arrest of Chota Rajan cannot justify the trial process he is reported to be subjected to. The law should take its own course. His revelations may be useful in dismantling the organised crime mafia but that cannot undo the horrific crimes he personally was involved in during the past. Enforcement agencies have now got an opportunity to prove their mettle.

The thing is it is rather very difficult to trace goodness among hardcore criminals considering the factors contributing to the formation of a well established world of criminality in any part of the globe. Greedy nexus between notorious criminals and a section of the politicians and bureaucrats not only remains as the generating fundamentals of horrid underworld crimes but also makes it impossible for extinguishing the alarming state of underworld crimes.