Respect rights of terror victims, not terrorists

Looks like we Indians have all been suffering from the “Stockholm syndrome”, which means sympathizing with one’s captors/abductors.
The world watches how India treats those that terrorize its population. Yet, it seems we Indians despise our own family and praise those who come to harm us, just because the world is watching.
When we as a nation equate Dr Abdul Kalam’s demise with that of a terrorist and give equal space (actually much more), it just shows how distorted and misplaced our judgement and views are.
President Abdul Kalam once wrote, “I was in Tel Aviv once and was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.”
President Kalam was trying to tell us something very important.
For more than a week, in the name of human rights and freedom of expression, the sordid drama of a terrrorist’s conviction has been played out.
A terrorist who is involved in killing and injuring hundreds of innocent people (his victims are from all communities) gets all the sympathy and full media coverage, while the funeral and coverage of a national icon, an inspirational leader for generations and a person who had dedicated all his life (remember he stayed a bachelor to dedicate more time to the country?) to protecting this country gets relegated to the inside pages.
Is this indicative of our national obsession with “having an opinion”?
A brave police officer and God knows how many army officers who lay down their lives fighting terrorists to protect innocent countrymen do not even get any mention or at best, tiny little space in the inside pages of our newspapers.
Hemant Karkare, chief of Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), Ashok Kamte, additional commissioner of police, Tukaram Gopal Omble, assistant sub-inspector, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, National Security Guards commandos and Vijay Salaskar, senior police inspector, are all forgotten, but Yakub Memon is popular among the youth today. Because we are talking about him unnecessarily and making him larger than life.
In the name of free speech and human rights, we shout till we become hoarse for the rights of terrorists but keep mum about the suffering and human rights of the innocent victims and their families as well as the families of police officers or armed forces personnel who have laid down their lives or have been injured protecting us.
How many of us who are shouting loudly about the human rights of the perpetrators of terrorism have visited or met their victims or their families (forget about sharing their pain)?
Was there any such debate in the USA when perpetrators of 9/11 or the Boston bombings were given the death sentence? That is also a great free country, which has given unprecedented freedom of speech and human rights to its citizens. But with freedom also come duties and responsibilities. They have matured as a society.
We Indians are a unique breed; overly aware of our rights, but not of our duties and responsibilities.
Was due judicial process not followed? How many years of court deliberations did it take and how many judges were there who evaluated the matter? Are all the judges wrong or biased? We are putting unprecedented pressure and casting aspersions and in the process will slowly destroy the judiciary, one of the very few venerable institutions left in the country which in recent times has stood for our rights and protection. This is not responsible behaviour.
We are living in difficult times and in one of the most volatile and dangerous parts of the world. Do we not know the design of ISIS to start a war on India? Was the terrorist attack in Gurdaspur an isolated incident? Should our sympathy be towards terrorists or should we be with those who are selflessly giving their life to protect us? This is the time we need to unite, not divide, and behave as responsible and dutiful citizens.
What example are we showing to our children growing up? What are we teaching our young impressionable minds? That human rights of perpetrators of violence are more important than those of victims and their families?
Do we not cut our gangrenous part instead of applying balm? As a doctor who has dedicated his life to saving others’ lives, I wholeheartedly agree that the death penalty has no place (except in certain rarest of rare situations) in modern society.
But should the debate start at the hanging of a terrorist? Should we be so insensitive to the pain, suffering and feelings of innocent victims, their families and the people who are protecting us?
(Dr Ramakant Panda is an eminent cardio surgeon and managing director of the Asian Heart Hospital, Mumbai)