Law has finally triumphed over loutishness. Furious demonstrations by Shiv Sena activists, even a midnight attack on her residence, did not deter Anjali Waghmare from making up her mind to defend Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the sole terrorist captured after the 26/11 attacks. Hell broke loose around Ms Waghmare, a government legal aid panel lawyer, when the special court trying Mr Kasab directed her to represent him and she accepted the case. Last December, when a criminal lawyer had tried to end the deadlock over this issue by agreeing to take up Mr Kasab’s case, his righteous colleagues had declared him an outlaw; his house, too, was pelted with stones. Barely a month into the coldly calculated Mumbai carnage, this reaction was not difficult to anticipate, though it could, by no means, be justified. The fresh outburst of anger against the legal aid given to Mr Kasab springs from a familiar sense of betrayal. A terrorist, so goes the mob argument, does not deserve to be tried fairly, implying that his inhumanity ought to be matched with an equally monstrous retribution.

Such primitive logic crumbles before the bedrock of a democratic State that upholds the equality of all individuals under the rule of law. Article 22 of the Indian Constitution guarantees a fair trial to all detainees on Indian soil, irrespective of the gravity of their offence. This procedure cannot be overridden by kangaroo courts dispensing wild justice on the basis of emotion rather than reason. To deny legal support to Mr Kasab would be equivalent to asking a doctor not to treat a wounded criminal. Both lawyers and physicians are under oath to deliver their respective duties from a point of absolute ethical neutrality. To coerce a lawyer into submitting to the irrational demands of a deluded mob is not only to obstruct the way of justice but also to undermine the first principles of jurisprudence. It may not be difficult to fathom the primal hatred that lies behind the threats to Ms Waghmare, but is there also a blinding paranoia that Mr Kasab may just get away with a crime captured on television for the entire nation to see? The killers of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were all given the right to explain themselves in a court of law. Mr Kasab has finally got his chance as well. It is a pity that he had to earn his right through a lawyer requiring Z category security.