I recently saw this feature film, Eye For An Eye (1996), which was basically about how a mother goes about avenging her daughter’s death by stalking the killer and then ultimately killing him. The daughter does not die because of any accident, nor is the killer a doctor whose negligence causes her death. The poor child is brutally raped and subsequently murdered by the demon. And all the time, while her daughter is being violated, the mother is doomed to listen to the entire chaos on the telephone, helpless, unable to help her child.
The film shows how the murderer is identified, but then acquitted on a technicality, something that is so very common in India. And this is what triggers the mother’s desire to see her daughter avenged, to get, in Biblical terms, an eye for an eye.
While the film ends predictably with the murderer killed, and the mother being seen as a victim rather than a perpetrator, I thought to myself that while this is all fine in the realm of imagination, but in reality, none of this ever could happen. Rapists are perhaps the worst of the breed of criminals that the human race can produce. I have always found them to be the most despicable of the criminal world, precisely because of the nature of their crime.
There is no greater offense against mankind, against society, than the one perpetrated by these sexual perverts. They fancy the whole world to be their realm, and the women in it their bonded property, to be used as they fancy, and when they fancy. They care not for the laws that bind people, nor for the niceties that govern societies, nor for the basic humanities which define us as a species (or perhaps not...)
The agony that the victim in this case undergoes is worse than that which a victim of any other crime, save murder, could conceivably undergo. A murderer, in his/her fury, may cut short a life, but a rapist does worse; he cuts short a life without giving the gift of death. A murderer seems humane in comparison to this demon, for he/she at least condescends to release the victim(s) from the pain that is entailed in the wounds that he/she causes.
But this deviant just doesn't wound the body; he wounds the very soul of the victim. He takes a living body, and leaves behind a sentient corpse. An irony, you say? Hardly. And yet, there are some who would plead for them to be treated in a 'humane' manner. I ask of you this, how does one treat these monsters, worse than even animals, for even animals have decency in them, in a manner contrary to their very nature? They ask that they not be hanged; that they be punished by being forced to serve a life sentence.
In India, and perhaps in many other nations, the system envisages a chance of the person reforming. Thereby, each prisoner is then given a chance to maybe show that he has changed for the better, and therefore can be sent back into society. But I submit that there are some who can never reform, who can never turn a new leaf. They are stuck on that same page of Life, and no matter how much the winds of change may blow, they simply refuse to look at life anew. Rapists are the prime examples of this category. And so, a life sentence is impractical.
Humanity is not just meant for the perpetrator. What about the victim and the victim's family? Are they not worthy of the warmth of justice, of the realization that even if their wounds could never be erased completely, that thorn which caused them injury will harm no one ever again? In the film, the mother hears, helplessly, as her daughter calls out for assistance. Imagine what a mother must feel when she looks at her broken daughter. Think of how completely useless the parents must find themselves for their inability to protect their beloved child.
Gandhi may have said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", but then when one is hurt so grievously, it is hard to remain so dispassionate. If there is a crime worthy of capital punishment, that is rape. Let there be no doubt about that. Let no more women suffer the scourge of such lustful deviants. Their crimes must come to roost, and they must realize that the law will penalize them, in a manner becoming of their horrendous crime.
3 comments:
Capital punishment it is,that's what these demons deserve.I agree with your opinion that these people are worst than murderers who actually make the victims suffer more than themselves ever will .Life imprisonment,No Sir,why give them a leisurely life when they don't deserve it at all and hoping that they will turn a new leaf is not feasible.
As regards the film,it is not possible to track down the rapist and kill him. A proper punishment is in order for this type of crime and which is what direly needed right now.
I do agree with you guys that capital punishemnt is the only one that should be metted out to such people. But what concers me is the alarmingly low rates of conviction in such cases.
People easily voilate innocent lives, destroy them and shamelessly go scot free. The society can do nothing about it as even our honourable courts stand as mute spectators. At times it makes them look las parterns in crime as they are inadept to give justice to the victims.
What must change is the rigid and non compassionate rules that only end up in embarrassing the victim and her family and freedom for the worst kind of criminals.
the punisheshment to be meted out to these m**********rs shud be according to the islamic law.. and which is widely practised in the middle east... chop off the wrists, genitals.. and public stoning to death....
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