Tomorrow is July 30 when Dr. APJ Abdul
Kalam's last rites will take place in his home town Rameswaram.
Tomorrow is also the day when Yakub Memon
is scheduled to hang in Nagpur Central Prison for his role in 1993 Mumbai
blasts.
With today's hearings in the Supreme Court,
all legal options available to Yakub came to an 'almost' end with the apex
court refusing to stay or commute his death sentence.
'Almost' because while writing this, a news
came that his lawyers filed another petition in the Supreme Court challenging
decision of Maharashtra's Governor to reject his mercy plea.
Now, we don't know if what is going to
happen this petition but while writing this, we can now say that the President
has rejected Yakub's mercy plea.
That means, now a miracle is needed to save
Yakub from the gallows, about which we cannot say anything.
Yakub Memon's hanging, no doubt, has become
a political issue and each side, involved politically, is trying to get maximum
political mileage from the ongoing, heated political debate that has swept the
consciousness of the nation for the past two days, or on any recent day when
there was an important hearing in the case.
But irrespective of the political debate,
there is an intense human side to it - that is between the perpetrators and the
victims.
Irrespective of people and advocates
sparking debates on 'abolishing death sentence', victims would always, in
almost cases (obviously there have been and there would be exceptions), demand
harshest of the punishment for the criminals directly affecting their lives.
Advocates fighting to 'abolish' death
sentence are right in their spirit.
Victims directly affected by the crimes are
justified in their spirit in demanding death sentence.
And it is an endless struggle between 'being
right in their spirit' and 'being justified in their spirit' and we, probably,
are not mature enough as a society, to take a decision that would be in the
larger interest of its members.
But, the heart is not feeling good on this decision
- on the decision to hang Yakub Memon.