Over the years, death penalty has been used as an approach to penalize the guilty. Our Justice system has cost millions for death penalty. For a moment, if we ignore the cost factor even then this act violates Human Rights Declaration and more than often it penalizes the innocents rather criminals. Moreover, the witty fact is that it does not deter people from breaking the laws and even this has not been proved as a way to achieve safer society. The question arises that whilst we have hundreds of other ways to fight with crime then why we go to this extreme. If murderer of someone can only be sentenced for death penalty then is not it another murder?

“Justice Vs. Injustice; Death Penalty Is A Murder”- RB

Webber (2005) claims that the death penalty makes people believe that ‘killing people is morally permissable’. This is an interesting argument – would you teach children not to hit by hitting them? Wouldn’t this instead show them that hitting was indeed ‘permissable’? There is also the fact that you might execute innocent people. Innocent people can always be released from prison, but they can never be brought back from the dead. When people have been killed there is no chance of rehabilitation or criminals trying to make up for crimes. For this reason capital punishment has been called ‘the bluntest of blunt instruments’ (Clark, 2005).

I have never thought about this issue this seriously to write something against death penalty as being a resident of terrorist’s under-attack country it is difficult to understand that if they are murdering then why innocents need to encounter this lethal punishment. The death penalty is regarded as a cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment in most countries. It becomes even more unjust and cruel in countries where the police and judicial system is corrupt and flawed.

Today, I was stunned by knowing the fact while watching an amazingly directed and thought-provoking interactive theatre play “Intezaar- The Wait” by Ms. Dina Mousawi and written by Mr. Shahid Nadeem that a condemned prisoner will spend an average of 11.41 years on death row in Pakistan. The stories of Intezaar are based on actual cases that are from Pakistan’s prisons, these stories depict suffering, injustice, and the never-ending wait. Characters of Intezaar are death row intimates of Pakistani prison, their miserable existence and their resilience and courage to make their meaningless lives somewhat meaningful.

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Every artist of Ajoka Theatre Pakistan enacted an introspective performance with that everyone in the audience was moved by this thought-provoking yet heart wrenching and forlorn act. In prisoners there was Sohail Tariq- who spends is all time studying and teaching, Fahad Hashmi as Abdullah a mentally ill prisoner who is believes that this all is a game of Chess as he has keen interest to play it, Muzammil shabbir- who likes to paint, Talha Akhtar, Usman Zia, Ammara Hashmi and others, while Prisoner’s family was played by Shahzad Sadiq and Anam Zaheer- she made the crowd cry with her sobs and mourns during her acts, and the Musicians were the icing on the cake, I heartily congratulate everyone associated with this theatre play that they have stood for something truly needed a bird’s eye view.

 

The heart bleeds to discern that Pakistan has revoked the moratorium on the death penalty for all offences. It is a tormenting reiterate that the justice system in Pakistan is going towards injustice, we are only moving backwards.