The execution of Ajmal Kasab on November 21, 2012 and Afzal Guru on February 9, 2013, has again revived the debate on death penalty in India. Those against the imposition of death penalty condemned the execution. Former Supreme Court Judge Justice Krishna Iyer talked tough against the imposition of death penalty and advocated the abolition of death penalty from the statute forthwith. According to him, life is given by God and can be taken away only by God. Execution by the state amounts to inhumanity. Gandhi’s country must set an example by abolishing capital punishment. Even if supported by a judicial verdict, the state should not hang a human being.
The term ‘capital punishment’ is derived from the Latin word Caput meaning ‘head’. It referred initially to death by decapitation. Laws relating to death penalty were found way back in the 18th Century BC in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which awarded death penalty for 25 types of heinous crimes. Death penalty was further found in the Hittite Code of 14th Century BC, Draconian Code of Athens of 7th Century BC and Roman law of 12 tablets. The executions were carried out by way of crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive and impalement. The adoption of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1989, which aims at the abolition of the death penalty, was the first attempt by the international community to abolish death sentence.
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