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| All eyes focused on Delhi's Tihar Jail | | Afzal Guru unwilling to file separate mercy petition | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, OCT. 11: Thirty-seven-year-old bespectacled Mohammed Afzal Guru, currently confined to a high security cell in Delhi's Tihar Jail, has, once again, demonstrated the hard stuff he is made of. Jail warden is reported to have visited him. Afzal Guru is told once more that he is free to file a separate mercy petition seeking clemency from the President, APJ Abdul Kalam.
But Afzal has been found unruffled--probably aware that his disavowal to seek clemency under the Constituion of India (that he says is against his conviction) could mark a new begining of political cataclysm, particularly in Kashmir, his homeland. According to inputs pouring in from the Tihar Jail, Afzal Guru does not talk; he performs his prayer silently in a corner.
A prison offical has confirmed that Afzal rarely eats and does not follow the routine schedule. According to the offical, Afzal is most of the time seen praying and reading. Afzal had been sleeping very les--not more than two to three hours a day. It appears somewhat certain that his clemency filed by his wife would be rejected by President Kalam. His expected date for execution soon, if not October 20, awarded by the Supreme Court, is gradually turning out to be an imperative pronouncement.
Pro-Afzal Guru and anti-Afzal Guru feelings seem to have put President Kalam in a difficult situation. Official circles suggest it is better to hold the hanging decision for some time. If President Kalam pardons him on the grounds of administration issues in Kashmir, and also to reassure the Congress-led government at the Centre, then it can be perceived as being ‘soft on terror’, says Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). If APJ Abdul Kalam rejects, then wait for another political bluster in the making.
Afzal Guru would be another Maqbool Bhat. With Congress finding itself in a much bigger dilemma — whether or not to rally against his death, Afzal Guru is likely to be hanged very much like the way JKLF founder, Maqbool Bhat, was sent to gallows 22 years ago in Delhi. It is said Afzal Guru, like Maqbool Bhat, too would have to be buried in Tihar if his death sentence is executed in Delhi. Either way the Congress is in fix; the Left parties, as usual, unhappy with the government, other coalition members undecided. The BJP like always agitated. And more or less everyone in Kashmir, including the pro-Kashmir separatist leaders, have protested against the death sentence.
The BJP has, at the same time, started vehemently opposing the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad's pro-Afzal Guru statement. Azad, of course, is an influential Congress stalwart. Nonetheless, his critics insit that he has made Congress’ task more complicated by requesting Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to appeal for Guru’s clemency. Farooq Abdullah too wants the death sentence be converted into a lifer. Prominent leaders Mehbooba Mufti, chief of People's Democratic Party (PDP), and J&K CPI(M) leader and legislator,Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, felt his hanging could fan the flames of turbulent Kashmir.
Far away, in Uttar Pradesh, political leader and cine-star Raj Babar is also against Guru’s death sentence. Several human rights activists from Chennai to Chandigarh, even some Kashmiri Pandits, are rallying seeking clemency for Guru. Some say Guru’s verdict has been awarded on circumstantial evidence and no eyewitness could be produced to substantiate allegations against him.
But widespread public opinion differs. About 85 per cent people in a poll on CNN-IBN TV Channel early this week said Guru should be hanged. Points out political commentator S. Gurumurthy: “Guru is not just anti-national. He attempted to defy not just the law of crimes. He not only defiled the constitution, but also attempted to destroy it. He was a main conspirator in the attack on Parliament.” “He conspired to kill or take as hostage, the prime minister and other ministers and Parliament members,” he says.
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