Sarabjit- Mercy/no mercy?

The Sarabjit Singh mercy plea saga has been making the headlines for quite some time. Read an article about that on rediff today http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/14guest2.htm

I was happy that finally I could read some clear, crisp and unbiased information. The media hype around the Sarabjit case was too much to bear. The ill-informed media (sadly that’s the only right term that comes to my mind) is wasting no time in trying to clinch those all the most important TRP ratings! Whatever happened to ‘responsible journalism’?

The hype is so much that the media is making a hero out of him. His sister’s version of the story is that he had strayed accidentally in the Pakistan territory and was later caught by the Pakistan police and framed in the Lahore bomb blast case of 1990.

The Pakistan version says that he is a RAW agent and he masterminded four bomb blasts in Pakistan. He is also said to have confessed on record about the same. The state owned news channel also played the video. The video was later termed fake, so I wont have a say on that however assuming that he is innocent - yet can’t the media do anything other that just create hype around the story?

Also if we consider he is guilty, then is it right on our part – a terrorism victim nation to empathize with a terrorist? Would we leave a terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of many innocents scot – free?

Considering the fact that the Pakistan Supreme Court had convicted him and later rejected his plea also means we cant’ expect the Pakistan authorities to release him. We can’t and shouldn’t doubt the judgment, as the highest judicial authority in Pakistan took it. Doubting that would mean doubting the governance there, which is a little far stretched.

He has already languished in the jail for around 18 years and that in itself is more than a life-term. I support the idea of converting his term to life imprisonment, as a life once lost cannot be retrieved, even if we prove his innocence later.