Afzal Guru hanged to death

In a top secret operation on Feb 09, 2013, the 2001 Parliament attack case convict Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged and buried inside the Tihar jail complex. With this ended the decade-long uncertainty over the execution of the surrendered militant from Sopore, Kashmir, as his mercy petition got caught up in a political slugfest between the Congress-led UPA government and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

            Union Home Minister, Mr. Sushil Kumar Shinde said that, the President sent back all mercy petitions for reconsideration, later the Union Home Ministry examined the file carefully and recommended to the President on January 21, 2013 for rejection of Afzal Guru’s petition.

Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh told that, Afzal Guru’s family was informed about the decision of the government to reject his mercy petition and this was done through Speed Post. The letter clearly did not reach in time: Guru’s family in Sopore, including his wife, said they received no word about his imminent execution.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had rejected Guru’s petition in 2011 and forwarded it to the then President Ms. Pratibha Patil. Ms. Patil chose not to act, but when Mr. Mukherjee took over as President last year, he returned all pending mercy petitions, including that of Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab — the Mumbai terror attack case convict — for reconsideration after Mr. Shinde took over as Home Minister in August 2012.

But before the Centre gave a go-ahead for the hanging, security across the country, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, was beefed up to avert any backlash. The Ministry of Home Affairs also issued an advisory to all State governments to remain on high alert.

 Afzal Guru was convicted of playing a central role in the entire conspiracy leading to the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. He had been on death row for the past 10 years since he was first convicted and sentenced by a special court in December 2002, while his death penalty was upheld by the Supreme Court on August 4, 2005.

In another controversial decision, the government decided not to hand over Guru’s body to his family members and buried it inside the jail complex. Home Ministry said that, it was a conscious decision as the government feared that his funeral could have been used to trigger violence and disturb peace in the Kashmir valley. In the case of Ajmal Kasab, neither his family nor the Pakistani government agreed to receive the body for last rites. Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh were the last persons to be hanged in Tihar Jail on January 6, 1989, in the Indira Gandhi assassination case.

On November 21, 2012, the Laskhar-e-Taiba terrorist Kasab was hanged and buried in the Pune jail after his petition was also rejected by the President.

Timeline of the events:-

Dec 13, 2001	Parliament attack: 5 terrorists enter Parliament complex, open indiscriminate fire. 9 killed
Dec 15, 2001	Delhi police pick up Afzal Guru, S. A. R. Geelani, Afsan Guru and Shaukat Hussain Guru
Oct 29, 2003	Delhi High Court upholds death sentence to Afzal Guru and Shaukat Guru
Aug 04, 2005	Supreme Court confirms death sentence of Afzal Guru
Jan 26, 2013	President Pranab Mukherjee rejects Afzal Guru’s mercy petition
Feb 09, 2013	Afzal Guru hanged to death

Prove it was not a selective execution – Omar:-

A livid Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah put the Congress-led UPA government in the dock over the secretive hanging of Afzal Guru and denying his family its right to meet him. The Centre would have to prove to the world that it was not a selective execution. Pointing out that the execution would lead to alienation in the Valley, Mr. Abdullah, in an interview to news channel CNN-IBN, termed the hanging a political decision and questioned why political parties, particularly the BJP, do not press for the hanging of killers of the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, or that of the former Punjab Chief Minister, Beant Singh.

            Mr. Abdullah’s party National Conference is an ally in the UPA government.  He also expressed concern over the Centre following the rulebook while carrying out the execution. He said that it is very difficult to reconcile to a fact that the government executed a person who wasn’t given the opportunity to see his family for the last time... There is something wrong in the system. Government could have easily got the family to meet him in Delhi and kept it a secret. Asserting that something should have been done to ensure that the family would have had a last hour to spend with him before he was executed, Mr. Abdullah said he would talk to the government about the issue of bringing Afzal Guru’s remains back to the Valley.