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| July 26, 2007 | Thursday | Rajab 10, 1428 |
KARACHI: The trivial difference between life & death
KARACHI, July 25: As superintendent of the Central Prison in Karachi, Nusrat Hussain Mangan, spends sleepless nights trying to figure out how to raise money to save the life of one inmate, just one of 107 on his death row, there are moments of near despair.
"When it comes to the real brass tacks, the champions of human rights who oppose death penalty and writers who never tire of writing how barbaric capital punishment is and how it should be abolished, all but vanish into thin air. When it comes to walking the talk, they shy away. It's just lip-service they pay to the cause," he lets out angrily.
His desperation is understandable. The family of Mohammad Ihsan, 34, condemned for murder, is trying vainly to meet the terms of a last-minute compromise which would halt the issuance of the 'black warrant' (the letter confirming a death sentence) and the final walk to the prison gallows.
The terms have been just too steep for Ihsan's older brother to meet. His father cannot help, surviving precariously on different jobs from day to day. It has been left to him, a garment factory worker, to collect the money. But he already has to care for seven sisters and three brothers. Of these, three sisters have recently been married off which has burdened him with new debts.
"The blood money -- the Islamic 'diyat' where money is paid as compensation to the family of the victim -- has been fixed at Rs1.2 million. The family has managed to collect Rs700,000 but the rest has still to be arranged, somehow," Mangan explains. He is trying to help raise the remainder before the week is out, although Ihsan's family will request the court to grant more time.
But wherever the superintendent and his team turn to for money they meet with resistance, he says. The usual response is: 'Why do you want to save, a murderer?' or 'When the court has sentenced him, who are you to interfere?'
Mangan looks at the situation from a very different perspective. "It's not a rotten part of the fruit that you just cut out and throw away, it's human life we are talking of. Even if he's a criminal, he's a human being first. So I tell them, he deserves another chance and we can help save his life by contributing that paltry amount collectively." Not many are convinced though and thus the delay.
Mangan has been in prison service for two decades and makes it clear that he adamantly opposes capital punishment, although Pakistan still routinely carries out executions by hanging. According to Amnesty International's 2007 report, "nearly a third of the world's 24,000 death row prisoners are in Pakistan".
"Nothing comes out of killing another person," Mangan says, adding, "There are other punishments that can serve the purpose."
His deputy, Raja Mumtaz Ahmed, has witnessed almost 20 executions. But never has he got used to them. "Life imprisonment is preferable. You get 25 years time, but actually end up spending 15 years inside due to various remissions. Then you are out. It's enough punishment," he says. Posted at various jails in Sindh during his tenure, Mangan has not even once witnessed an execution, nor does he intend to do so this time. "I am confident this time, though we have very little time, we will be able to save this fellow," he says.
He and his team did recently succeed in arranging the blood money for three other inmates, all of whom were sentenced to death for separate road accidents in which three people died. "Not one was a 'criminal' as is usually pointed out. They were poor so their families could not arrange for the money and their employers refused to bail them out. But the amount was manageable and we could find people to donate."
Mirza Tahir Hussain, a Briton who spent 18 years languishing in Pakistani jails, but whose sentence was commuted by a landmark decision of President General Musharraf last year, has also joined Mangan in his campaign to raise the `diyat’ money. He has fired off emails around the world to charities, businesses, friends and family, appealing for donations. So far he has raised 1,495 dollars in addition to what the family has collected.
His sympathy is acute. "Most of the convicts finally sent to the gallows are from poor families, unable to pay diyat," he says. "The more affluent and influential use methods of coercion to force the victims' family into a compromise and get off the hook."
A senior prison office here, on condition of anonymity, confirms what Hussain says. "There are cases that get disposed of even before the crime is registered at the local police station. Huge sums are exchanged, in connivance with the police and lawyers," he says.
Mangan's anger directed at the human rights organisations reflects his sense of helplessness confronted by such a system. "I believe 90 percent of the executions can be commuted and don't even need to reach a stage where inmates are sent on death row," he says.
What this case shows is that Pakistan needs to establish well-funded institutions so that one would not always have to go out with the begging bowl. "What is needed is an independent body that can look into the legal rights of the prisoners. Most poor prisoners do not have access to good public legal representation.
"Even if there are advocates representing them, they are either too disinterested or so mediocre that their case is already spoiled by the time it reaches the higher courts. The well reputed lawyers are far too busy making money and, in any case, too expensive for these poor people to engage."
Mangan would also like to see a body to take over the onerous task of reaching `diyat’ compromises which all could live with without prison officers having to be involved.
"Initiating a dialogue with the families, arranging for compromises and reconciliations is time-consuming, requiring patience, a certain amount of cool and tact. Most families, already under emotional and economical stress are not good at looking at circumstances rationally. But if there was a competent body handling all this, there would be less heartburn on both sides and our time would not be spent on doing this as it is now," he says.
Tahir Hussain agrees. In a Muslim country like Pakistan it is essential to establish, what he calls, a "reconciliation committee", both for the accused and the victim's family. "This would also be in keeping with the true spirit of Islam," he says, adding that after Ihsan's life is saved he would like to join others and work towards establishing this.--IPS
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