BRAZEN VIOLENT CREDO

The justification for the killing of four men outside a poll booth in Cooch Behar by a senior BJP satrap is breathtaking. The four 'bad boys' killed in CISF firing drew no regrets from Rahul Sinha, a second rung BJP hothead, who went on to say that the loss of four lives was not enough. "Not four, eight people should have been shot dead in Sitalkuchi. The Central forces should be issued a show-cause notice asking why they killed only four and not eight... Goons are trying to deprive people of their democratic rights. Central forces responded appropriately." Blaming the TMC for a fifth death in a separate incident, Sinha said an 18-year-old boy was shot dead in public for supporting BJP and "their leader is Mamata Banerjee." What sort of language are we using? All five victims are our own people, thankfully, not four more, albeit with different political leanings. Rather than taming the trigger-happy police, we are adding fuel to the fire. Rather than training police in people-friendly ways to deal with crowd control, we should equip them with less-lethal alternatives. Rather than equipping them with deadly live ammunition, we should arm them with stun guns and train them to shoot below the knees. After all, they are all our people on both sides of the political divide.

— SUBHASH CHOPRA, DELHI via email