Should Rajiv Gandhi’s killers be spared of Hanging?

Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India was killed by a human bomb in 1991 during an election campaign in Sriperambudur in Tamil Nadu. The group of killers were sent by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE of Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran who was killed recently by Sri Lankan Government in an internal war). The reason being dispatch of Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka for restoration of peace as a part of the accord with the then Sri Lankan President. In fact the Indian government was short charged by both LTTE and Sri Lankan government resulting in large scale killing of Indian soldiers and ultimate withdrawal of the forces by the next Indian government. It is also to be said that initially there was tacit support by the Indian government to LTTE and the then Tamil Nadu governments allowed them to run militant camps in their state. On the fateful day Mr Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a human bomb Thanu alongwith several others. There was a man hunt for the remaining members of the LTTE team. Some of them committed suicide when surrounded by Police in Bangalore and a few others were caught and prosecuted. After protracted court cases the Supreme Court has sentenced three of them to death. After a gap of 11 years the date was set for their hanging to September 9th. This was stayed by the Tamil Nadu High Court for 8 weeks. There is a significant activity by some sections in Tamil Nadu to commute the death sentence to life sentence. Should this be done? According to me, NO.
1. The killing of the former prime minister is a pre-meditated murder planned by an outfit from another country and which was banned in India also. The fact that they have done a dry run by reaching nearer to the then Prime Minister, Mr V P Singh during one of his meetings in Tamil Nadu shows the meticulous way the group planned the killing. This amounts to a war again the nation and hence should be punished by death without any mercy.
2. The act of killing is a terrorist act against the country by a well known terrorist outfit which was notified as so by many countries and the killing done through a human bomb which itself is a method used by terrorists across the world. All the acts of terrorism are acts against humanity and should be punished by death.
3. The plea put up by the daughter of the one of the convicts to spare her father appears to be reasonable from the side of her family which is what being highlighted by some of the human rights organizations in Tamil Nadu apart from the fact that there is inordinate delay in execution of the Supreme Court Order due to which the convicts went through immense mental agony which should be taken into account and the sentence to be commuted to life. However the basic fact everyone is forgetting is that by their act, they have deprived of fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers to several families with their act. Who will compensate them for their losses? Some of the people injured in the blast are still feeling the effects. Where is the respite for them? Just because one of the convicts started a family (with another accused in the same case) and got a daughter should absolve him of the heinous crime committed by them.
4. Though there is some merit in the argument about delayed execution of court orders resulting in mental agony, will it not become a plea for every other convicts like Ajmal Kasab of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai or the ones from the attack on Parliament?
The fact that there is abnormal delays in getting judgments in court cases is fact which needs to be looked into by the Highest Court. Why should so much of time required for running a court case against a known terrorist like Ajmal Kasab who killed people literally on television? Why can’t the case be resolved immediately without so much of fanfare? Are we not creating martyrs out of killers. In this light act of the Tamil Nadu assembly passing a resolution to spare these Rajiv killers is nothing but an act of political mechanizations and is highly reprehensible. Why can’t the government take action against the known politicians like Mr Vaigo who in every meeting talks venom against his own country. How is he different from the banned outfit of Maoists?
This is one of the rarest of the rare cases where an act of war was committed against the country by a known terrorist outfit and the culprits should be punished with the highest penalty without any mercy.