Kasab goes to the gallows, send Nikam to his chambers please -Governance Now

Kasab goes to the gallows, send Nikam to his chambers please

Will somebody tell him we do not revel in death, even if it is of Ajmal Kasab?

Sarthak Ray | May 6, 2010

Ujjwal Nikam holds up the victory sign. Politician or prosecutor?

Ajmal Kasab is toast - and all ye good Indians, raise a toast to Ujjwal Nikam, our man of the newshour.

There he is - on all news channels - clutching the black booklet of revelations II (titled "Death Penalty"). Right after the sentencing. The delivery of printed copies of his brief (you guessed it right, the booklet) in all probablity, was made at Nikam's desk much before the sentence was delivered. How else do you explain the booklet in his hands and on the screen right after Kasab got the news of the noose? And yes, we have all met its elder cousin, the booklet of revelations I - "Yes, You Are Guilty".

Maybe there are more cousins, lesser known ones - "You could be guilty, but you get the benefit of doubt", or a much, much less likelier "Let us buy you the tickets to Karachi." Or a hidden sibling, "There, there... let us feed you and buy you clothes for the rest of your life." They never got their debut, nor were they ever likely to.

And then he speaks. Kasab committed the crime not just in cold blood but in frozen blood, he says. That's about the time most of us had ours boiling.

We watch him scrape away at every bit of credit - far more than his due - in the sentencing It is quite a temptation to tell him, " You, sir, are undoubtedly the guy who got us the death sentence for Kasab. But you, sir, did not win it for us. Everyone had felt the horror, more so the families of those who died that night at the hands of the terrorists. The media did so without much grace, but managed to sensitise the second largest population in the world to the tragedy. Evidence was overwhelming, no matter how many times Kasab confessed and recanted," but nobody actually does so. We let it go by as the exultation a lot of us would have felt if we were in his place.

But later, in an interview to Times Now, Nikam calls the 38 (including Kasab's) death sentences that he has sucessfully argued for as his "score". That is exactly where the pride and the exultation starts to seem morbid, and, getting scarier every time he smiles.

Is the dignity of being a senior public official still walking with you, Mr. Nikam? Or have you left it hanging at your office, sentenced such by your need for attention?

Having basked, soaked and gotten drenched in the public attention, I think, it's time now you retired to your chambers.

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