Judge P. Krishna Kumar of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court invoked secularism and misinterpretation of religious sanctions while sentencing six accused in the Kanakamala Islamic State module case to various terms of rigorous imprisonment and fines here on Wednesday.
In his judgment running over 200 pages, Mr. Kumar expressed dismay at the way some of the convicts arrogated to themselves as 'merchants of death' for propagating their 'perverted ideas in this land of literature and secularism.' He hoped that the young men who mistook sacred religious sanctions as a call for crime would one day realise that “mankind evolved thousands of centuries ago, whereas our religions, in the last few millennia.”(sic).
While he observed that the courtroom conduct of the convicts was impeccable and that none of them, except the fifth accused, had criminal antecedents, Mr. Kumar, nevertheless, drew attention to the fact that they had orchestrated a plan to support a terror outfit like the IS. It is almost an inviolable rule that in such cases, while rewarding sentence, a sympathetic approach is out of place. The sentence has to be imposed by giving more emphasis on the aspect of social security, rather than individual liberty,” the judge observed.
The court further held that civic society had a ‘fundamental’ and ‘human’ right to live free from any kind of psycho fear, threat, danger or insecurity at the hands of criminals, and that society legitimately expected the court to apply the doctrine of proportionality by imposing suitable and deterrent punishment which is commensurate with the gravity of the offence.
Most stringent
However, mindful of the culpable role of each convict, the court chose to treat the convicts separately. The court reserved the most stringent punishment to prime accused Manseed regarding him as the mastermind. “When the chat conversations in the Telegram group were examined, it was found that he had motivated, enticed, and incited all others into his plan apart from devising a detailed plan to execute their task,” the court observed.
