Contemning The Law!
How The Cop Laxman Zaman Got Away With Bigamy!!

©P.J. Mascarenhas, Bombay. Monday, 1st December 2003.

References:
http://www.chalomumbai.com/news/city/2003/may/53906.htm
http://www.chalomumbai.com/news/city/2003/may/53916.htm
http://www.chalomumbai.com/news/city/2003/may/54134.htm
http://www.chalomumbai.com/news/city/2003/may/54138.htm
http://www.chalomumbai.com/news/city/2003/october/65520.htm
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=26391
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/06fird.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/30mum.htm

Recently, Namdeo, the man who briefly paralyzed Bombay by holding his fellow guards at the airport hostage after murdering his superior, was once again in the news.

On an appeal by the government of Maharashtra, his bail has been cancelled. Delivering its decision, the Bombay High Court said that since Namdeo's crime was heinous, it would send a wrong message to society to let him out on bail.

Namdeo has refused to surrender himself and has gone underground. His advocate says that he was told that Namdeo wanted to go to Delhi to appeal in the Indian Supreme Court. I wish him well. It is extremely doubtful that he will get a different response there...

I may be a dumb layman, but I always believed that the basic precept of law is that an accused is innocent until proven guilty. However, here the Bombay High Court seems to believe that Zaman is guilty, even before any court has applied its mind to the case and arrived at a due conclusion. That is not justice — that is prejudice.

Again, it is my understanding that arrest and custody are to be used only to restrict a person from committing harm or doing wrong, or to interrogate an uncooperative suspect or witness — not as a form of punishment in itself.

It is evident that, the episode being finished, Namdeo poses a threat to no one. He is far from being a professional criminal, a psychopath who goes on rampages and routinely takes hostages...

And if a court believes that there is a danger of him becoming a psychopath, then have him incarcerated for evalutation and treatment, not for punishment!

The Bombay Police have already subjected Namdeo to psychological tests, and the doctors have certified him to be normal.

But in India, police and magistrates routinely resort to arrest of persons accused in a complaint merely as a form of punishment rather than a legitimate effort to arrest wrongdoing. This is abuse of the law, and a crime in itself!

And yet, it seems, that that same sloppy, criminal thinking has reached to the benches of the Bombay High Court. Not only will the High Court prejudge Namdeo, it will also pre-punish him, even before and without a guilty verdict!

Bravo for India! Bravo for the billion or so who are so fortunate to be at the tender mercies of such sloppy minds!

If the Bombay High Court had applied its mind even a little, it would have seen, not a monster, but a man which any sane society would recognize as a hero.

It would have seen that the system is contemptuous of workers and mistreats them. It would have seen that the system is intolerable. It would have seen that Namdeo was inevitable. It would have recognized the attenuating circumstances in Namdeo's case and that his case is a warning, a wakeup call for the system to reform itself before things go even worse.

But no. What "milords" can see is someone daring to buck the system, some one who shortcircuited the system Alexander's way — by cutting the Gordian Knot. And "milords" can only disapprove.

Well, I have news for "milords": The people of India are seething and boiling. It will only take a spark for an explosion.

Many before me have been warning of the danger, of the building resentments. Many before me have been warning of the danger of the coming explosion.

Let me warn once again: We could potentially have a blow-up worse than the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution... Wake up and smell the smoldering fires... before you end up at the guillotines!
©P.J. Mascarenhas, Bombay. Monday, 1st December 2003.
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