Zardari calls Guru hanging ‘abuse of process’

President says force and oppression would not silence calls for self-determination in Kashmir.

MUZAFFARABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday paid tribute to the Kashmiri activist executed in India in February for plotting to attack the Indian parliament and called his hanging "abuse of judicial process".

Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged in New Delhi on February 9 for his part in a deadly attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, sparking more than a week of protests in the disputed Himalayan territory.

Zardari's remarks to the joint session of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in Muzaffarabad are likely to inflame tempers in India.

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

Zardari said "force and oppression" would not silence calls for self-determination in Kashmir, where a separatist conflict has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives over the last 20 years.

"The hanging of Afzal Guru through abuse of judicial process has further angered the Kashmiris."

He praised Guru by quoting a verse written by the Urdu language poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

"The dignity and esteem with which a person heads towards the place of execution is immortal. On contrary, the life is but a transitory phase."

Guru was convicted of conspiring with militants who raided the Indian parliament in 2001, killing 10 people and bringing nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

The one-time fruit merchant and medical college dropout had insisted he was innocent and that he was denied a proper legal defence. Protesters have accused police of framing him.

Guru's execution was mired in further controversy after his family said they learned about his death from television.

There were warnings the hanging could lead to more violence and last month militants disguised as cricketers killed five paramilitary police in an ambush in the main city of Indian Kashmir, the area's deadliest attack for nearly five years.

Zardari also said that counter-terrorism requires practical cooperation and terrorism could not be fought through blame game and hostile propaganda.

"We believe that Pakistan and India should not allow terrorists and militants to dictate the agenda," he stressed.

“The Kashmiris have paid in their blood for the failure of the international community. I salute the courage, the resolve and the determination of the Kashmiris.”

The President said that history had taught them that oppression could not endure.

“People cannot be suppressed indefinitely. Suppression cannot long endure. This is the lesson of history.”

Zardari reiterated Pakistan's stance that they would not give up on Kashmir.

“If we are to surrender the people of Jammu and Kashmir, we will be surrendering Pakistan. The governments may come and go, but we cannot abandon the people of Jammu and Kashmir.”