One of India’s bigger tragedies, as is often said, is her politicians and their loose tongues. Asked to speak, they generally spew venom.

So hours after Ram Singh, the prime accused in the December 16 gangrape and subsequent killing of a 23-year-old paramedic in Delhi, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail early Monday morning, Barkha Singh, the Delhi commission for women’s (DCW) chairperson, shot off her mouth.

“He was the main accused of the case and we were waiting for him to be hanged,” Singh said, as reported by firstpost.com and other media outlets.

Also read: Will Ram Singh death move focus off gangrape case?

Perhaps only an Indian politician can manage to punch both references in the same sentence, and then spew it out in the same breath — that an accused, in effect, is a convict.

Main or not, Singh was precisely what Ms Singh said he was: an accused, as opposed to being a convict. And unless the latter is true, the even the latter part of her sentence — “waiting for him to be hanged” — cannot be deemed true. It can only be deemed irresponsible, immature and jejune.

Till the time a person is not convicted, such reactions can only be called premature baying for blood.

Singh had more in store: “Since the hanging of Afzal Guru it seems he was in mental pressure. If an accused is hanged then it will pressurise others.”

So what Barkha Singh, in all her responsibility as the DCW chairperson and as a Congress MLA from a south Delhi constituency, perhaps means is this: expect more suicides by accused and convicted persons since the state has hanged not just Afzal Guru but also Ajmal Kasab. For, two hangings in three months should ideally put more “mental pressure” on the others.

Which is part-alarming one part-dangerous. It needs reforming not just the criminal justice delivery system but even policing inside jails, which the DCW chief herself addressed in part of her observation, arguably the sanest one today: “(The) police administration is in question.”

Singh also said, “I think it is a matter of surprise that he hanged himself inside the jail.”

Why? Is Singh surprised that he hanged himself due to, or despite, the purported “mental pressure”? Or is it that he did the act inside the jail? Would she have been less surprised had Ram Singh committed suicide on the fast-track court premises, for instance? Or was killed by fellow inmates, as his family claims, while seeking a CBI probe?

What Singh, and other politicians and people in responsible positions with a similar shoot-from-the-lip-first-and-check-with-brain-later bent of mind, need to learn is the art of keeping their mouth in check. And for a change, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit showed that today. Asked to comment after meeting union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde over this issue, Dikshit said, “I don’t know anything about Ram Singh’s case. I have informed Sushilkumar Shinde about Ram Singh’s custodial death. It would be wrong to comment on this incident until the magisterial level inquiry is over.”

It’s another matter that Shinde could well surprise everyone with the inanest observation of the day but that’s another story.