Date:13/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/13/stories/2007111352180803.htm

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

The death penalty

The initiative by over 70 countries for a United Nations General Assembly resolution declaring a moratorium on executions should be given up. It is for a country to decide whether it should retain or abolish capital punishment. Although the death penalty is a barbaric act, it is necessary to deal with hardcore criminals and terrorists. The time is certainly not ripe for its abolition.

V.M. Khaleelur Rahman,

Ambur

* * *

It is doubtful whether the number of murders is lesser in countries that have the death penalty in their law books. Life imprisonment is enough to chasten a criminal.

According to Bernard Shaw “Assassination on the scaffold is the worst form of assassination because there it is invested with the approval of society ... Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind.”

K. Panchapagesan,

Chennai