It’s been weeks of reading through the arguments of the ‘intellectuals’ in our country against capital punishment for those who rape children below 12. It’s interesting to see the use of the term “human rights” so lavishly when you talk about them – the rapists, not the victims. So basically, from all the times I have heard the use of this term in our country, terrorists have human rights, the innocent victims killed by them don’t; rapists have human rights, the victims as young as just days-old babies who have been tortured, raped, murdered and mutilated don’t. If you want to oppose capital punishment, go ahead, please do. There is nothing wrong in that. But at least think of a better reason, at least in this case. Otherwise the souls of those children and all those other victims would be cursing you from wherever they are right now. Oh! And yeah, dear larger than life, well-meaning saints, that’s not how you guys sounded when you were speaking on TV or tweeting right after the horrific incidents of rape and murder recently.

When anyone asks you how your arguments make sense, you start off playing the victim card of how you don’t get to say anything you like in this country anymore, AFTER you have already said whatever you wanted, without any consequence attached to it and continue to do it, yet again, without any consequence attached to it! It’s actually funny how some of you say that our country has no freedom of expression, that capital punishment is wrong, that human rights are more important; but then you worship those countries where the word freedom doesn’t exist, capital punishment is the norm and human rights are unheard of. (Remember the posters praising the North Korean dictator and countless tributes to China??) That’s not irony; that is hypocrisy. At least decide what you support and what your ideals are instead of switching from one to the other every day.

There definitely is a lot of intolerance in our country, amongst people having different beliefs and ideals, as it always has been there – not a happy scenario. I will say it out even if you call me an anti-national and ask me to go to Pakistan. But if it has become so bad now, that is only because every single one of you try your hand at dividing people on the basis of their religion, in the hopes that the worse it becomes, the more beneficial it is to you in the next election. So please, you don’t really have to don the mask of the messengers of peace and harmony. There may be so many blind followers who believe in that bullshit or maybe pretend to believe it. But there are also so many people who can see through it so damn easily. There are people who can see the obvious – that you rejoice finding yet another incident you can conveniently use against your political rival. And if you must still go on with the facade, do so; at least stop using those victims as your trump cards for the elections.

Every time you go on a candlelight march and protest right after such an incident based on the religion and political affiliation of the victims and the perpetrators, every time you act like a vulture hopping around just to see how the incident can bring you any sort of gain for the political party of your liking, every time you ignore another incident involving another victim who unfortunately belongs to a community you have nothing to gain from, every time you talk about human rights of the attacker only because that has a direct relation to the vote bank, remember this – none of those victims would support the kind of injustice and inequality you display, because for them there is no competition on “Who got more coverage?” or “Whose sufferings were more sensational?”. For them, there is only a sisterhood of having shared the same kind of pain and brutality, the same kind of end. For them, all that matters is that their life was cut short even before it started – so many dreams to be followed, so many memories to be made – all cut short. Think about that before you shamelessly bring politics and religion into the picture and contemplate on the human rights of their murderers.

And just so you know, if rarest of the rare is considered the condition for sentencing someone to death, then rapists should be considered commonest of the common criminals and let off with a warning. From the time I can remember, that’s how common it has been and it has to stop, at least now!

Also published on Medium.