This refers to Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer’s article “Terror and the horror of the death sentence” (Feb.17). As the college professor of one of the police officers who escaped death by a whisker trying to fight Veerappan, I was perplexed and dejected to find the legal luminary pleading to abolish the death sentence and save the lives of the four associates of Veerappan. Instead, he should have been championing the cause of the wounded and those killed by urging the authorities to ensure capital punishment and justice for them. By saying that “Gandhi’s country must set an example by abolishing the capital punishment,” what does he have to tell the kith and kin of those who sacrifice their lives while fighting criminals? One wonders why the great judge didn’t raise the issue when he was in the Supreme Court.
K. Jayapaul,
Chennai
