M A I N   N E W S

Govt plays it down, says it’s culmination of a case
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 9
Political parties across the spectrum today welcomed the hanging of Afzal Guru. Through the swiftness and secrecy around the timing of the execution, the UPA Government has sent a sharp yet subtle message about anti-terror stand.

For a regime that had been pilloried by the BJP for being soft in tackling terror pointing to the inability of the Government to take a decision on the clemency petition since the 2006 judgement as a case in point, the Centre studiously downplayed the hanging as being anything other than a culmination of a legal process.

Between November 21 last year and February 9, the Home Ministry implemented two death sentences against those convicted for terror acts. First was Pakistan's Ajmal Kasab, who was caught alive during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and now Guru, for his role in the December 2001 attack on Parliament House.

The BJP grudgingly acknowledged the development as justice having been done to Guru against whom all judicial authorities affirmed his guilt and upheld the death sentence. The only grouse was that the Government took a long time in carrying out the sentence.

“For reasons which the government has been unable to explain, the execution was delayed. But finally law has taken its own course. Public opinion has compelled the government to act and enforce the law... Though belated, justice has been done,” BJP leader Arun Jaitley said in his reaction.

He also underscored that just as India spoke in one voice after the attack on Parliament in December 2001, the country should send a clear message to the world that India is not a soft state and those who attack its sovereignty and its institutions will be held accountable.

The Government through Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tiwari sought to underscore that the decision was not taken on political grounds but a culmination of the process that went forward after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the mercy petition.

The Congress through spokesman Rashid Alvi said the clear message from the hanging is that India will not tolerate terrorism and anybody committing such act will be punished. “People of our country and the government have zero tolerance for terrorism”.

The Congress spokesman did not hold punches emphasising that the BJP-led NDA Government minister had escorted terrorists to Kandahar in Afghanistan and those let off masterminded the Parliament attack.