Why keep an escape route open?Raymon Davis and Sharukh Jatoi used this law to escape justice
There are two things:
Qisas: Which is an eye for an eye.. So according to strict Shariah law, this guy needs to stand on the same place, and run over by a similar vehicle driven by the victim's heirs. But that requires a proof that the murder wasn't a mistake. I like Qisas very much, unfortunately, no country has applied the Islamic law strictly otherwise, we would have seen many videos of throwing acids on the faces of B@stards who burn victims by throwing acids on them.
Diyat: ***IF*** the family is ready to compromise (
not forced to compromise), then it is allowed for them to ask for blood money in spite of EYE-FOR-AN-EYE (Qisas). This gives the victims (specially the poor) a chance of asking for lifelong earnings from the murderer. The concept behind it is that, the person is already gone, he can't comeback. He was probably the only bread earner in the family. It is very difficult for the family now to survive without that person. Another condition is that the killer is really sorry on the act. In the case of Achakzai, or Shahrukh Jatoi or Raymond Davis, we have seen the reverse. Diyat doesn't apply if the person doesn't ask for forgiveness first from the family. When family pardons him, only then Diyat is allowed.
So law ***permits*** the family of the victim to ask for any compensation that they believe is justified. Without diyat, the murderers may be freed within 5 years without families having any compensation whatsoever. Their condition will deteriorate further without the only bread earner.
Problem in our law is that, we haven't applied Qisas o Diyah completely. First, we haven't seen EYE-FOR-AN-EYE ever. So families prefer Diyat over Qisas because they know that even in intentional murder cases, the most a killer will get is 14 years in jail. So they go for the option number two. If government starts throwing acids, or starts killing people in the same manner as the victim is killed, we won't see many diyat cases because people want to see suffering of the culprit. Imagine, if we are so angry, what would be the condition of victim's family?
This Qisas is so strict that once someone (a victim) was brought in front of the Prophet (PBUH) with a broken tooth. He (PBUH) ordered breaking of the tooth of the culprit, who broke the victims tooth.
That's why I am in favor of this harami Achakzai to be asked to come live on media first and ask for forgiveness. This should be done in front of everyone of us who want to see his request to pardon. Then I like someone to assess the total wealth of this harami, tell the family about the assessment and advise the family to get ***at least*** half of it. Their man can't comeback now, and this guy will not get death penalty because of the nature of incident.
But, as you said, the law is incompletely applied, and rich murderers force the poor victims to compromise on their own conditions, I would also like it to be abolished until we start seeing real Qisas.