The country was sleeping when four young men were shot dead by the police. Rewind eight days, these four men were supposed to have done the most gruesome of crimes, rape and murder of a young doctor.
The young doc, who was coming back from her work was tracked, raped and burnt to death even as the family and the police were searching for her in the wee hours of that sad November night. Four young lorry drivers were supposed to have done the crime and the police promptly arrested them within a day or two and the police were given ten-day custody by the court of law to prove their guilt. Among the sadder days in India as another of its daughter met the horrible end; Another young dream nipped in its bud.
Now, let me clarify certain concepts clearly.
Violence is wrong! Morally, ethically and legally wrong. It is wrong on any human being's part to use violence against another. So, imagining that those four young men were the real perpetrators of the crime, what they did is wrong. But can police use violence? If violence is wrong, then why only certain men and women calling themselves police(Government employees) carry instruments of violence, like guns? To understand this, we got to understand that in a modern democracy, the state is given a monopoly on violence. To put it simply, any government has the right to use violence on its citizens, and by monopoly I mean, ONLY the government can use violence. Nobody other than the government can use violence on anyone else.
Ah, then can any random government employee use violence on any citizen? What if some random policeman or army man starts shooting randomly? That is why the state has developed a mechanism called the rule of law. Rule of law basically means "the restriction imposed on the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws". So the state has its own laws within which it can use violence; There is a separate entity created by the modern democracies called judicial systems whose sole responsibility is to decide whether the rule of law is followed by the state and by the citizens.
One of the most important and established restrictions on the state is the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty". The presumption of innocence, that is, till the mechanisms of justice prove any citizen guilty of a crime, the citizen is considered innocent. So the government mechanism can suspect someone to have done the crime during their investigations. But till the mechanisms of justice, which are a separate entity, decide on the guilt. Those two are a separate entity. The governments and the courts! These are kept separate as safeguards given within the system to protect the government mechanism from the illicit use of violence.
Let us get back to today's happenings. So the police suspected four people to have committed the crime. We shall give the benefit of doubt to the police. But till the mechanisms of justice prove their guilt, these people are innocent. The onus is on the police and not on those young men to prove the guilt to the courts (Mechanisms of justice)
Imagine in case the police is given the right to violence without the courts, any random policeman can use the instruments of violence on hapless citizens just by suspecting guilt.
I understand that the crime was heinous. But for any heinous crime should come within the rule of law, letting the state use its monopoly on violence without the rule of law, will be a dangerous proposition.
The young doc, who was coming back from her work was tracked, raped and burnt to death even as the family and the police were searching for her in the wee hours of that sad November night. Four young lorry drivers were supposed to have done the crime and the police promptly arrested them within a day or two and the police were given ten-day custody by the court of law to prove their guilt. Among the sadder days in India as another of its daughter met the horrible end; Another young dream nipped in its bud.
Now, let me clarify certain concepts clearly.
Violence is wrong! Morally, ethically and legally wrong. It is wrong on any human being's part to use violence against another. So, imagining that those four young men were the real perpetrators of the crime, what they did is wrong. But can police use violence? If violence is wrong, then why only certain men and women calling themselves police(Government employees) carry instruments of violence, like guns? To understand this, we got to understand that in a modern democracy, the state is given a monopoly on violence. To put it simply, any government has the right to use violence on its citizens, and by monopoly I mean, ONLY the government can use violence. Nobody other than the government can use violence on anyone else.
Ah, then can any random government employee use violence on any citizen? What if some random policeman or army man starts shooting randomly? That is why the state has developed a mechanism called the rule of law. Rule of law basically means "the restriction imposed on the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws". So the state has its own laws within which it can use violence; There is a separate entity created by the modern democracies called judicial systems whose sole responsibility is to decide whether the rule of law is followed by the state and by the citizens.
One of the most important and established restrictions on the state is the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty". The presumption of innocence, that is, till the mechanisms of justice prove any citizen guilty of a crime, the citizen is considered innocent. So the government mechanism can suspect someone to have done the crime during their investigations. But till the mechanisms of justice, which are a separate entity, decide on the guilt. Those two are a separate entity. The governments and the courts! These are kept separate as safeguards given within the system to protect the government mechanism from the illicit use of violence.
Let us get back to today's happenings. So the police suspected four people to have committed the crime. We shall give the benefit of doubt to the police. But till the mechanisms of justice prove their guilt, these people are innocent. The onus is on the police and not on those young men to prove the guilt to the courts (Mechanisms of justice)
Imagine in case the police is given the right to violence without the courts, any random policeman can use the instruments of violence on hapless citizens just by suspecting guilt.
I understand that the crime was heinous. But for any heinous crime should come within the rule of law, letting the state use its monopoly on violence without the rule of law, will be a dangerous proposition.
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