Holiday Reading: 
Should Afzal Guru be hanged till death........?? 
By Suman Mukherjee

An India Today poll in late October showed that 78% of Indians supported the death penalty for Afzal Guru…!! On the 23nd of June 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended the President's office to reject the mercy petition. On the 7th of January 2011, a whistle-blowing site indianleaks.in has leaked a document which states that the mercy petition file is not with President of India……
The barbaric punishment method called “Capital Punishment" which is existing since the Gupta era, does it really prevent the said elements? Do we really endavour, to eleminate its roots….??!!

Let me being with: 
"Namaste sadaa vatsale matru bhoome
Twayaa Hindu bhoome sukham vardhitoham
Mahaa mangale punya bhoome twadarthe
Patatwesha kaayo namaste". 
We live in strange times when blatant Communalism is promoted as Secularism and genuine Secularism is banished as Communalism; when Nationalism is called Jingoism and when Divisiveness is promoted as Plurality. Indian state has become a gutless old hag, influenced by cowards like Mani Aiyar and Arundhati Roy who will never never never say anything against the Islamic terrorists because of the fear coming on a hit list. The blundering idiot, Shivraj Patil even mooted the idea of exchanging Afzal for Sarabjeet. This is the country in which we live. Strange isn’t it….??!!

Anyway, for the last several years heated debates are going on regarding putting Afzal Guru to the death pit; and had there been no appeal against the death sentence pronounced by the Supreme Court, the man would have been hanged on 20 October, 2006--the matter would have ended there. But the issue is being dragged on and on…....death sentence was passed on a man whose names comes not just in the assassination of one man, but in an attack on the Indian Parliament. Had the attack been successful it is hard to imagine how many MPs, Ministers,  etc, would have been killed!!

I have seen Afzal Guru on television channels in a number of occasions. Earlier he was clean shaven with a gentle face and the way he spoke was also noticeable. After seeing him first on TV and hearing him speak with a television commentator, I could not even imagine that he could be a part of that heinous crime!!

But contrary to his earlier image he now sports a Mullah-like look, may be to please the Radical Islamic Groups who are standing firm behind him for granting of clemency from the President of India. I saw on television channels, speaking as to how he helped in the attack and about the other persons behind this incident.

But what I feel he is simply a conspirator to the crime.....Though IPC ruling on Capital Punishment to the conspirators to heinous crimes, is ambiguous and subject of debate, but what I personally feel is that ‘this is too much punishment for the type of crime he committed'. Moreover, there is another angle to this incident: there is no dearth of people in Kashmir who say that those who had attacked Parliament are freedom fighters.  Also, this is a bitter truth that no organization whatsoever has yet taken the responsibility of that attack; though it is presumed that the attack was conducted jointly by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), the Kashmiri militant/separatist groups. The misguided youths of Kashmir who took to guns and wanted their land to be merged with Pakistan did not realize that the latter is in the verge of collapsing, into Talibanistan, Pakistan–II, compromising of Baluchistan, Sindh and original Pakistan. So what about the “Plebiscite in these two (or may be four) Pakistans”??!!

Earlier it was mentioned in a section of Kashmiri and Urdu press that, former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Front president Mahbooba Mufti are among those who stood for clemency. In this context, the most powerful voice was from Ms. Mufti who once said that, "At a time when India is making efforts to bring all the differences with Pakistan to an end and establish peaceful and friendly relations with Pakistan, it would be sheer foolishness to hang Afzal”. She is still of the view that all political parties in Jammu and Kashmir should jointly appeal to the President of India to grant clemency to Afzal and transform his capital punishment to life imprisonment. Ms. Mufti, said that if clemency appeals were made for Sarabjit Singh citing his Indian nationality, voices should also be raised for Afzal for "he too is an Indian citizen. Two citizens of India cannot be treated with different yardsticks”. .

The former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah also sent an almost equally strong line, "You want to hang him? Go ahead and hang him, but the consequences of hanging him must also be remembered".     Commenting on another case, the Supreme Court once ruled that the powers of pardon cannot be exercised on the basis of caste, creed, religion or political affiliations. But Farook Abdullah was clearly pleading for the exercise of clemency in the name of religion, which equally goes against the policies of state, which guarantees "Right to life to its citizens".

It would not be an exaggeration to mention here that, if we talk of religion/cult based influence of judiciary, we can consider the case of Tipu Sultan who when suspected Roman Catholics of South Kanara of scheming with the British to overthrow him, had some 60,000 to 1,20,000 Catholics caught and transported to Srirangapatnam to be put in dungeons, apart from hanging a few of them in Mangalore. This was what precisely some of the Muslims rulers did to non-Muslims.

It is also well known fact that Unlike Congress most of important parties of the valley had categorically said that: an attack on Parliament is in fact an attack on India; so in such a case there is the need for serious political response. The BJP since then has been accusing the ruling UPA that it has adopted the strategy of appeasing Muslims even at the cost of national stability.

Moreover, many political parties, politicians and activists have demanded that Afzal Guru should be executed at the earliest. Such clamor does not show us in good light. Death for him could only be as early as it’s permitted under the Law. The government must and should do everything to show that it resisted short cuts amounting to denial of any rule of the land whose crimes deserved no mercy.

A section of Urdu press (read Akhbar-e-Mashriq e) had stated in a number of occasions that when if with the interference of Ms.Sonia Gandhi, the murderers of Rajiv Gandhi could be given life imprisonment instead of hanging (to death) then why the same principle cannot be adopted in the case of Afzal Guru??!! Such views were also voiced by various "Islamic" separatist groups in the valley.

In this context it is worth mentioning what N.D. Pancholi, the advocate for Afzal Guru said, "There is no proof to prove Afzal’s involvement in the Parliament attack conspiracy, and the Supreme Court itself has said in its judgment that the capital punishment has been pronounced to satisfy the collective sentiments of the nation and society".

Now let's look what the Supreme Court judgment says, "The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, has shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender." If this is the case then serious questions could be raised regarding putting people like Afzal Guru to gallows.

The other question which could be asked is: will the might of the Indian state be appeased by killing a mere foot-soldier? We must find a religious motif in their attitude of “licensed to kill Kaffirs”. It is because many of these Islamic terrorist see their role as a Ghazi, killing idolaters/kaffirs whom they hate.

It condemnable to note what Booker Prize winner Arundhuti Roy said in this context, "To invoke the 'collective conscience of society' to validate ritual murder, which is what the death penalty is, skates precariously close to making lynch law valorous”. She further adds: "It's chilling to think that this has been laid upon us not by predatory politicians or sensation-seeking journalists (though they too have done that) but as an edict from the highest court in the land." The “loose cannon”, Arundhuti Roy’s, (who abused liberal traditions of India to the fullest in many earlier occassions) comments unfortunately made India look like a “Banana Republic” and Honourable Supreme Court as a “Kangaroo Court”. One hopes that the respected judges of the Supreme Court of India has either taken or will take note of this remark. Isn’t it a tribute to the tolerance of India’s ethos that a person who openly calls cessation of India is walking free and not being locked up? Arundhati Roy and Praful Bidwai have been quite vocal on this issue and castigated the trial and argued that Afzal has been denied natural justice.

Afzal Guru, a medicine and surgical instrument dealer in Kashmir, was sent to the death row in 2002. His sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court a year later. The sentence was to have been carried out on October 20, 2006, but his execution was stayed after his wife sought clemency from the President of India.

Before jumping to the conclusion, let us let us first examine what the author, Pankaj Vohra (Hindustan Times) says about clemency: "Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Mohammad Ghori a dozen times and forgave him each time. But after the one battle Ghori won, he ordered Prithviraj's blinding”. Mr. Vohra's argument is that forgiveness does not often pay, and India should not show itself up as a soft State by granting reprieve to those who endangered its sovereignty.

There were also reports in a section of newspapers, that Firebrand Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani once led a procession in Srinagar shouting 'Dr Mohammad Afzal Guru, “We Are Proud of You", which goes to show the nature of sentiments prevailing in the valley for Afzal Guru.

In June, 2010, there was news in a section of the press that central Home Ministry has written to the President of India that Afzal Guru's is a fit case for death sentence, in response to the mercy plea filed by his wife Tabassum. The Centre said the nature of the crime is heinous and the convict in the Parliament House attack deserves no mercy. A ministry note said: "Mercy petition filed by Tabassum, wife of the Parliament House attack convict Afzal Guru, should be rejected. Nature of the crime committed is heinous and he deserves no mercy."

The Home Ministry in turn sent the Afzal file to the Delhi government seeking advice where it was held up for four years. The state government acted only after 16 reminders. Lt Governor Tejinder Khanna sought clarifications on the Afzal Guru’s mercy petition on May 18, 2010. Last year the Delhi government Lt Governor, in a pure case of “delay tactics” sent back Afzal Guru’s file to the Home Ministry, saying it supported Afzal's death sentence but that there was a need to examine the law and order implications of implementing the SC verdict. Some people of Indian Union has called it as, “Astounding and shameless when a state holds itself hostage to defenders of criminals, who have been convicted by a full judicial process”.

Meanwhile, in the last month, the All India Anti-Terrorist Front led by M. S. Bitta demanded that Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru be hanged immediately and asked the Government to “show seriousness” in the matter. “Incidents like 26/11, Varanasi blast are still happening...so what is the war against terrorism by the Government?” he asked. "Why this step-motherly treatment? Afzal was sentenced to death nearly five years ago. He has not been executed till now. But, the government and the Law Minister are talking about fast tracking Kasab's death sentence. Why? Because, Kasab is a Pakistani and Afzal is an Indian and a Muslim," Bitta said.

Mr.Bitta added, "If Afzal is executed, political parties feel that they would loose the Muslim vote bank. No one should put their political compulsions above nation. Please don't indulge in vote bank politics," he said. "Afzal, Kasab and others awarded death penalty should be hanged together."

However, eminent jurist Shanti Bhushan termed the Centre's move unfortunate, saying Guru was only a conspirator of the attack, and did not carry out the attack. "This is very unfortunate. The government is bowing down to the Opposition pressure. Death penalty is for the person who actually does the act. He was only a conspirator, so the SC should not have given him death sentence. It is an additional punishment to be on the death row for five years," said Shanti Bhushan.

If we dig past we would find that the logic behind Maqbool Bhatt’s burial in the jail premises on being hanged at Tihar in the 1980s was to deny the separatists a rallying point in the form of his grave. By the same argument, many intellectual are of the view that Afzal Guru should be wasted in jail as an ordinary criminal even if it means risking future hijackings for his release. We are aware that keeping dreaded criminal in Jails for too long might trigger in a repeat of “Kandahar” like episode. There is also another risk, if Afzal Guru dies in jail Kasmiri youth might see this as another manifestation of the machination of the state and be "brain washed” into making him a martyr. But what I feel is that "Every problem has a humane solution".   

Therefore the situation is quite complex and the Indian state should consider all the implications before taking final decision and should not cow down in front of traitors. The efforts should to be finding a middle-path.  Veterans might recollect the circumstances under which Maqbool Bhatt was hanged. He was sentenced in 1978 but was hanged in 1984 and that too in a knee jerk reaction to avenge the murder of an Indian diplomat in Birmingham. His mercy petition was kept pending all this time and then decided overnight. The question being asked in some quarters is: will the occurance of the same situation demand an implementation of death sentence.

There are also a section of society which says, leave Afzal Guru, as he is a freedom fighter while hang Kasab because he is an intruder…..But this is perhaps a dangerous argument because by not hanging Afzal first, we might give the terrorist country, Pakistan a talking point which says that India does not follow its own law when it comes to Indians (Afzal) but wants to do this on fast track when its comes to a Pakistanis (Kasab). Thereby, they will start questioning the whole impartiality of our legal system and then make an excuse for their tardy proceedings on the 26/11 case. 

Now the argument that Kasab an illiterate and deprived Pakistani, who was brainwashed into doing deeds which supposedly shall bring him salvation, should be hanged, while Afzal Guru a literate Indian well aware of his deeds but who still committed treachery should be allowed to be saved from the gallows, is a strange logic, devoid of any rationality. It could be just a way of defending the Congress Party’s prevarication on the issue and its distorted politics. We have seen such double mouthing of the Congress Party on the “Batla House Encounter”. Hence we cannot have two yardsticks for the two convicts languishing in the Jail, though the quantum of crime is different—it can be termed as impractical nonsense which looks like a “logical” statement coming from people who are on “Steriods”.

But then like most of the time, in this case also, I hold a different view far away from “Political Statements” and other hackneyed shenanigans. I consider “Death Sentence” to be medieval curse which should be abolished before it further brutalizes Indian societies. Most of the countries of European Union have abolished the same, but it seems, India under the influence of Islamic Barbaric Jurisprudence (Sharia) still wants to keep it......

In this context it is pertinent to mention that some years back Mr. S. Achuthanandan's demanded to adopt a resolution against Capital Punishment which was lauded by Anti-Death Sentence Samiti convener K. Girishkumar. Mr.K. Girishkumar, in a press release said Mr.Achuthanandan's gesture would impart strength to the democratic and progressive traditions of the State. It was the first ever instance where a Leader of the Opposition had officially demanded a resolution in the Assembly demanding termination of capital punishment, he said.

There are also a group of Indians who feels Honourable Supreme Court of India should not have bent down to the "mob sentiment" or passed on the judgment as "Justice with revenge". 

At end what I feel, inspite of my comments on Capital Punishment, is that sending Afzal Guru to the gallows is just an easier option and we may end up giving another excuse to Kashmiri Muslims to start another cycle of terror.  So getting rid of this vermin sooner or later does not serve too much purpose for Indian Union. 


Moreover, it is a well-known fact that now a days Martyrs are created by careful communication strategies. As a country, we cannot prevent certain groups from creating their own martyrs, but we can certainly send a message out that harming innocent people in the name of a cause will not be tolerated. That can be achieved by overhauling the British Jurisprudence which we follow, giving it a humane touch. We should punish the cause, not the effect, and it is God’s right to take lives, not humans or a state. Thus, in cases of Capital Punishment we should let our emotional intellect rest in the closet and think rationally.

The point which I need to highlight is that: anyone is not born a terrorist but circumstances and sometimes cult-based teachings pushes him/her to that state--a new value based system can again change that person. But capital punishment cannot change anyone...

It is better that we find out some other alternative punishment methods for solving serious problem, instead of continuing with this medieval system. It is true that all those perpetrators of Parliament attack need to brought to justice but then a state which is not able to give life has no right to take the life of another person. I appeal to the government of India to abolish this system of punishment.

I know my thoughts will be looked upon by many, as full of magnanimity and humaneness, towards terrorists and hard core criminals. But this is the way I feel...!! After all governance is a complex game involving overlap—between what the law wills and what’s required for effective maintaining peace or countering of terrorism. One can’t always compartmentalize the two…………!!