Saddened
Yesterday, I read about the following incident reported in newspapers: Hannah Foster, a British citizen was raped and killed by Maninder Pal Singh Kohli who later fled to India and hid somewhere. After months of inaction, Trevor and Hillary Foster, parents of the unfortunate victim, came to India to appeal to the press etc to help in the search for their daughter's killer. And as luck would have it, the criminal was found even before they had returned back to England. The Punjab Chief Minister who was earlier slated to meet with the Fosters to discuss the manhunt has now promised his full cooperation in the extradition process.
On reading the report at first, I felt happy for the family. I still feel happy for the family, but now I also feel troubled by a number of questions that haunt my mind:
- Had a UK citizen (or any Western country) been guilty of a crime against an Indian, would the UK embassy have even issued a visa to the distraught parents? I have my doubts!
- Had he been nabbed, would the UK citizen have been extradited to face charges in a third world country? Given the qualms Western countries have in extraditing far more culpable offenders and terrorists, people who aren't even their own citizens, I am sure the answer to this question has to be a 'no' as well!
- Would the Chief Minister of Punjab have granted a personal meeting to an Indian couple trying to find justice for their deceased daughter? Of course not!
The answer to each one of the above questions is 'no'! And it is this realization that we still bend our backs to please our erstwhile colonial masters that leaves me saddened!
posted by Priyendra at 3:06 PM
4 Comments:
The answer to second question is a definite no since most of the european countries are bound by a treaty that asks them to not extradite any person to a country where he might be elagible for capital punishment.
In fact if u are aware, there was a british citizen involved in Purulia arms dropping case. He claimed that his activities were in the knowledge of british government. British govt never actually accepted this and he was jailed. But there was always pressure to release him. Finally when Blair or somebody was planning to visit India, he was released as a good will measure (read bargaining). And we are talking about national security here !!
3:00 AM
You mean to say that the Purulia guy was held prisoner in an Indian jail and was released as a bargaining chip ahead of the upcoming British PM's visit?? Unbelievable!
But coming to the point about capital punishment. Consider the following scenario: Osama bin Laden (or even a lesser terrorist who is wanted by America) is apprehended in Portugal and the US demands his extradition. Do you think that the US will guarantee that Osama will not be sentenced to death? No it won't and even then, despite all its treaty obligations, Portugal will hand him over to the US. Why? Because the Portugese administration will argue before its courts that they have full faith that the accused will get a fair trial in American courts. In my opinion, these concerns about humans rights and stuff are just sticks with which these developed countries use to routinely beat developing countries into submission.
1:29 PM
Yeas, that is right. His name is Peter Bleach. In fact before him, 5 russians were also released when Russian PM came here. Here are some links:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jul/22rifat.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/846093.stm
Peter Bleach freed:
http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/05/stories/2004020511511200.htm
Here are more details and how Danish Govt has refused to hand over the main accused Kim Davy who moves around cool types in Copenhagen:
http://users.senet.com.au/~wingman/purulia.html
http://samariaf0.tripod.com/purulia1.html
And in the end, here is a good news :)
http://cbi.nic.in/p19july4.htm
:)
11:42 AM
I think purulia case is just tip of ice burg...all around the world there are criminals who have murdered our people and got away with it ...
a few cases
1) Warren Anderson ,Ex- union carbide chief...responsible for an accident which claimed more than thousand lives ...and this is what we are doing about and the US rsponse ... read this http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=072004112047
2)Pakistan kills more than 650 jawans in kargil and we don't even declare a war with that country
3)LTTE ...killed our ex prime minister..and all we do is to not to participate in dialog process between Sri Lanka and LTTE ...hilarious
4) 16 BSF jawans(2001) are killed by Bangladesh rifles and all we do is to lodge a diplomatic protest!!!
there are many more incidents like these
so this case is not an isolated incident
Are we really a soft state ?
5:28 AM
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