By Shevlin Sebastian
Fr. John Puthuva was working as a counsellor in Tihar Jail
from 2012-15. So, during his work, he met many prisoners including the Nirbhaya
killers, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur. They had
brutally raped and murdered a 23-year old physiotherapy intern on a moving bus.
All of them wore head covers, with slits, as they went for hearings during
their trial at a fast-track court in mid-2013. Fr John would meet them on their
return, offer words of consolation and tell them to pray to God for
forgiveness. The police constables listened quietly.
Later, inmates assaulted Mukesh and he was kept in solitary
imprisonment for his safety.
Once, the priest, along with a couple of volunteers went to
Ravidas camp, a slum in RK Puram, South Delhi to meet up with Mukesh’s family.
But they were refused access. However, when they made another attempt, they
were allowed to meet the slum dwellers as well as the neighbours because they
identified themselves as social service workers. “The local people told me that
what they did was a horrendous crime,” says Fr John. “They knew the men had to
be punished.”
But Fr. John, who is now the parish priest of the St.
George’s Church in Kalady, has his reservations about the hanging of Mukesh,
Vinay, Pawan and Akshay, which took place in the early hours of March 20. “I
believe God gives us life, so we have no right to take a human life,” he says.
“Instead, exemplary punishment should have been given.”
(The New Indian Express, Kochi)
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