Protests erupt in Kashmir: India parliament attack plotter hanged

Move draws criticism from rights organisations, Kashmiri leaders.

NEW DELHI:

In a swift and secretive operation on Saturday morning, Mohammad Afzal Guru was hanged inside New Delhi’s Tihar jail complex for his role in the 2001 attack on India’s parliament.

Guru, 43, had been found guilty of conspiring with and sheltering the militants who carried out the attack in December 2001 – an event that claimed nine lives and exacerbated tensions between India and Pakistan.

The decision to execute Guru, a suspected Kashmiri militant, was taken after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition and sent it to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on February 3.

The hanging follows the execution of sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab, who was hanged in November last year.

Soon after receiving the president’s decision, senior officials of the home ministry met to discuss the execution of the order and steps needed to maintain law and order, espe cially in Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.

“Afzal Guru was hanged at 8am. All legal procedures were followed,” Home Minister Shinde told reporters.

Shinde added that Guru’s family members were informed about the decision through speed post and that the Jammu and Kashmir police chief was asked to verify if the family has received the post. Guru was buried on Tihar jail grounds.

However, one of Guru’s co-accused, S A R Geelani, who was also sentenced to death but was later cleared, disputed the government claim that Guru’s family had been informed about the execution by express mail.



APHC condemns hanging

Though the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party welcomed Guru’s execution, All Parties Hurriyat Conference  leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq condemned the move, announcing a four-day shutdown of the scenic region in protest.

Guru, who had insisted he was innocent, had been “framed”, Farooq added. Farooq and another Hurriyet leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani were taken into preventive custody.

Background

Guru’s association with militancy began in 1990 when he was a first-year medical student in the Srinagar Medical College. The Kashmir Valley was in turmoil and like many young people, Guru dropped out of college and joined the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).

Indian intelligence agencies believe that Guru was sent to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) after he joined JKLF for training in small arms and assault rifle.

Intelligence officials believe that Guru began acting as a courier and provided logistical support to members of JKLF. Security agencies say that Guru provided militants with shelter and the car that was used in the attack, additionally, explosives and Rs1million were recovered from his house when police arrested him in Delhi.

Fairness of trial questioned

Human rights groups have denounced the decision to hang Guru. They allege that Guru was not given a fair trial because there was no lawyer to defend him at the trial stage. Guru had named several lawyers to defend him but none agreed to fight his case.

Rights activists have also alleged said that Delhi Police were unable to establish that Guru belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad.

“The hanging of Afzal Guru, following closely behind the hanging of Ajmal Kasab in November, shows a very worrying trend by the Indian government. We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment,” said Human Rights Watch in a statement.

Amnesty International insisted that Guru’s trial fell “considerably short” of international fair standards.

Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal told CNN-IBN television that the execution was driven by the government’s desire to appear tough on militancy with 2014 polls looming and said Guru’s conviction was based just “on circumstantial evidence”.

Guru’s family said they were asking authorities to be allowed to perform his last rites inside the prison and also to be given the body. “We have written a letter to the deputy commissioner of Baramulla district demanding Afzal’s body,” his cousin, Yasin Guru, said.

(with additional input from Aditi Phadnis in New Delhi)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2013.