Stalking death

Capital punishment in Nepal

Would reinstating capital punishment protect our girls and women from rape? At the outset, it is reasonable to assume that fear of death would be a strong deterrent. But what little study that has been done on such deterrent effects of death penalty, for instance its link to murder rate, is inconclusive. In fact, different researchers have at different times come to different, and sometimes diametrically opposite, conclusions.

A highly respected team at Emory University in Atlanta, after studying data sets from over 3,000 counties in the US, came to the conclusion that an execution, on average, resulted in 18 fewer murders. But in April, 2013, an equally respected team of researchers at the non-partisan National Research Council, also US-based, concluded that "research to date is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide [murder] rates." In this situation, we should err on the side of caution.

Since an Indian court last year sentenced three men to death for the rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai, the demand for capital punishment has been getting louder in Nepal as well. This demand reached a fever pitch when seven-year-old Puja Shah of Bara was brutally raped and left to die in a ditch this February. The public outrage was justified. Raping and killing a minor is perhaps the most heinous crime and those involved deserve stern punishment. But we are not convinced sentencing them to death is the way to go about it—for a number of reasons. There are many cases of alleged rapists and murderers who have been behind bars for a number of years, sometimes decades, but who have been later exonerated. Fifty-seven-year-old Michael Phillips of Dallas, Texas, had spent 12 years in jail for a rape. Then last July local prosecutors delivered him the shock of his life: new DNA testing had conclusively proved that he was innocent. Since 1973, 150 American prisoners on death row have later been exonerated, most of them on the basis of DNA evidence. But it is not just the built-in fallibility of the criminal justice system that is problematic. As Amnesty International notes, "you are more likely to be sentenced to death if you are poor or belong to a racial, ethnic or religious minority."

We thus believe that the District Court, Bara was right to sentence the 28-year-old Kanhaiya Lal Gupta, the person who raped Puja Shah and left her to die, to a maximum 35 years in prison. The prospect of spending the rest of your life behind bars, in some ways, seems a more fitting punishment for unconscionable rapists and murderers than a hasty death. It is also humane.

Nepal is a proud member of 140-strong international club of nations that have outlawed death penalty. Following incidents like little Puja's chilling rape and murder, it is easy to get carried away with our emotions. But thankfully our jurors and lawmakers have thus far been able to display not only big hearts but also cool heads. Whatever happens, we should not let criminals like Gupta, who has confessed to his crime, pervert our justice delivery system.