S:     It's absolutely a dilemma, Ameen. I have no idea why you don't think so. I thought you called yourself an intellectual.

A:     Sometimes it's pretty black and white, Sadiq. Sometimes it's okay to give in to the plain rights and wrongs of what happens around us. We can argue all you like on capital punishment, but I'm rather happy with these terrorists being sentenced so harshly for the deaths they are responsible for.
S:     Yes, but. Isn't that the whole point we keep arguing about? All lives are equal, equally important and the state is equally answerable for all of them. If you and I can debate the nuances of capital punishment when Sunni lives have been destroyed, we should be able to debate the capital punishment when Ahmadi lives are concerned. We can't be selective about our morality, because you see, that argument can go the other way just as easily. And that, my friend, is where bigots and hypocrites breed.
A:     For heaven's sake, Sadiq. Get out of the prisons of your own knowledge. Really. Don't you see, at least ideologically, that this is a win? A community relegated to the dust bin of this country, ostracised, murdered, targeted, and labeled "deserving of murder," is being avenged on the same terms as the rest of the country. It means something, Sadiq. It means something.
S:     It means we are applauding the steps we take backwards. Put them in jail, give them life sentences, find the rest of them hidden around our cities. The arguments against capital punishment still apply.
A:     I'm going to leave this room and go be relieved, quietly, at the poetic justice of it all.
S:     It's poetic, Ameen. It's not justice. There is no justice in meting out death penalties. Remember that.