Crime and Punishment

Long ago I read/heard a story of a philosopher and his disciples. One of the disciples asked why god can’t punish only the ones who are sinned. Why should he punish all innocents around the sinned? The guru took a moment and started walking along the riverbank without answering the question. Disciples too followed him. He stopped at a place and so did the disciples. Moments later the disciple that asked the question felt something was biting his leg. He observed he was on an ants nest. He took the nest and threw it to the river. The Guru looked at him and smiled. He said you answered your question. Why did you throw the entire nest whereas only one ant has bitten you?

This seems to make lot of sense nowadays. One bad deed by our fellow citizen results in punishment of few more surrounding him. Take the case of Haneef or the Sanjay Dutt. If you are part of the crime in whatever manner you are bound to be punished. I am not comparing these two. Haneef came out clean, but his unknowing deed of lending a sim card costed him several days of mental torture. Dutt may not have planted the bombs but mere association in the crime plan was sufficient.

Update 14August: I read an excellent column on NDTV, that highlighted several factors including following:

Sanjay's well-wishers may lament and mull, but the law -
Sec 7 of the Arms Act - requires that the accused be sentenced between 5 and 10
years.

Often media forgets to mention the facts. It is this kind of columns that are useful to everyone. Again thats my opinion. Though I sympathized Sanjay initially, reading this cleared my vision. Judgement is fair. Our legal system may have loop holes and flawed but instances like these help regain confidence on it.