Mumbai was subjected to a brutal terrorist attack killing 175 people and wounding at least 308 innocent people. These attacks drew a widespread global condemnation. It’s sad that after the ghastly 26/11 attack the anger and outrage lasted only a few days. Kasab, the lone survivor among the terrorists is still in jail and everyone has moved on without making the correction in our security system that made the attack possible. Isn’t this alarming?

Kasab is charged with waging war against the nation, hatching a criminal conspiracy and the murder of 166 people. He was put under trial which lasted for 271 days and had a record number of witnesses (658), out of which 296 were examined in a record 271 days. The rest of them had sworn on affidavit. Apart from this, during the trial, 1,015 articles pertaining to the investigation were submitted, and there were 1,700 documents to support the case on part of the prosecution. This was considered as one of the rarest of the rare cases and hence Ajmal Kasab was sentenced for capital punishment on the 3rd of May, 2010.

After the trial public prosecutor, Ujjwal Nikam said that he was happy for finally everything was over.
Today five and a half months after the verdict, Kasab is still languishing in jail. He even had the audacity to demand for a re-trial of his case with a new lawyer. Nothing gives fearful man more courage than another’s fear, and the in-competency of our system is what this man is mocking at. By giving Kasab a fair trial Indian Government argued that it is not a banana republic, but now when the verdict is out and it’s taking so long for the implementation what should one feel? With around 658 witnesses, video tapes, media coverage, call records and many more evidences that prove this man guilty. If he is still alive then that itself is a slap on the face of the system.

The entire episode of 26/11 makes us the Indians to conclude is the system really in-sync with the constitution by which we are governed or is it that the politicians of our country are playing their own music masking their face in the name of law.

Everyone in the country says, “System needs to be changed”, and adds to it, “What can we do?” We can do something only if we want. Our constitution, which politicians use in their own ways, has the Fundamental Right to Constitutional remedies. It is one of the powers vested in us by the constitution as the citizens of this land. We have our Right to Information so we should demand an explanation by the government for the actions taken by them on big issues. We also know that Kasab has a long life to live, given the snail’s pace of the Indian judicial system.

But now it’s high time that we come together and tell the politicians and those, who mould our preamble for their benefits that, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”