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Kasab, Guru hanging rings alarm bells for Sarabjit, Rajoana & Bhullar
Trial court to SC, judiciary had put Afzal Guru’s case on fast track
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Expert: Guru had no right to challenge mercy plea rejection
Security forces on high alert; Army keeping extra vigil along LoC
We weren’t informed about hanging, says Guru’s family
Omar urges people to maintain calm
Valley channels go off air, Net jammed
Guru was a commission agent in fruit business
Afzal first to be hanged at Tihar after Indira’s killers
Hurriyat leader's kin alleges detention A deluge
of comments on social media
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Kasab, Guru hanging rings alarm bells for Sarabjit, Rajoana & Bhullar
Amritsar, February 9 In the aftermath of the Kasab hanging, already there were apprehensions that the fresh mercy petition of Sarabjit might be rejected by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari amid calls in Pakistan from hawkish elements to hang him. The family members of Sarabjit are obviously worried which also explains their complete silence over the issue. When The Tribune contacted Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, she clearly denied any comment on Afzal Guru’s execution. Sarabjit’s lawyer Awais Sheikh, while talking to The Tribune on phone from Pakistan, said it will have no impact on Sarabjit’s case. There were similar fears following the Kasab’s execution, but nothing happened. “Also unlike Kasab case, Afzal Guru was an Indian national.” He said Sarabjit’s case was totally different from the cases of Kasab and Guru. “It is clearly a case of mistaken identity. Sarabjit’s name doesn’t even figure in the FIR,” he added. Sheikh, who is also a human rights activist, said they have been advocating abolition of capital punishment for long and there is even a chapter on it in the book that he penned on Sarabjit case. Sarabjit was sentenced to death in connection with serial blasts in Lahore and Multan in 1991. Earlier, the family of Sarabjit had suffered a jolt when on June 26 the Pakistan government did a volte-face within hours of announcing the release of Sarabjit by saying that they were releasing Surjeet Singh and not Sarabjit. However, Sarabjit is not alone facing this situation in Pak, as another Indian prisoner, Kirpal Singh, too is facing gallows there. Kirpal Singh had crossed over to Pakistan on February 29, 1992, and was arrested on charges of carrying out a bomb explosion and spying. He was sentenced to death. Later the Pakistan’s high court had acquitted him of bomb blast charges but did not rescind his death sentence in spying case. Back home, the fact that hanging of Kasab and Guru came in quick succession after India’s last execution in 2004 has triggered disquiet in the Sikh circles about the fate of Rajoana and Bhullar. Reacting to today’s development, radical Sikh outfit Dal Khalsa said Afzal Guru’s hanging “shows a very disturbing trend by the Indian government”. Terming it as an “inhumane punishment”, Dal Khalsa chief HS Dhami said: “The hanging of Afzal Guru is a purely political decision taken by the Indian government to consolidate the Hindu vote-bank, keeping an eye on the impending 2014 elections.” What has added to the fear among the Sikh circles is the fact that the chances of the government showing any leniency in the cases of Rajoana and Bhullar have dipped to nadir as the state would not like to be seen as targeting members of a particular community. While SGPC President Avtar Singh could not be contacted despite repeated attempts, SAD secretary Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema said they had filed the petition in the Rajoana case as a legal remedy and it was now up to the government to take a decision on it. Cheema denied any further comment on the issue.
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Trial court to SC, judiciary had put Afzal Guru’s case on fast track
New Delhi, February 9 The entire judicial proceedings from the trial court to the apex court took just three years and two months. In the first place, the Delhi police completed the investigations at break-neck speed and filed its report in six months flat, on May 14, 2002. The special court of SN Dhingra finished the trial, in the words of the Supreme Court, “within a record period of about six months” despite the fact that it had to examine 90 witnesses, 80 on the prosecution side and 10 for the accused, and a “plethora of documents” numbering about 330. The trial court verdict came on December 18, 2002, sentencing Afzal to death. It was upheld by the Delhi High Court on October 29, 2009 and the SC on August 4, 2005. Afzal was sentenced for his close links with the five heavily armed Pakistani terrorists who had carried out the attack. Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed and 16 people, 13 of them security men, were injured in the Parliament attack on December 13, 2001. All the terrorists were shot dead in the encounter that had ensued. The courts have ruled that Afzal, himself a Pak-trained terrorist who had earlier surrendered to the security forces at the instance of his family, was part of the conspiracy to wage a war against the country in the form of the attack on Parliament around noon when the Winter Session was on. Afzal had helped the terrorists procure ammunition for assembling bombs, besides getting them cell phones and arranging them accommodation in Delhi. He also remained in touch with the terrorists even minutes before the attack.
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Expert: Guru had no right to challenge mercy plea rejection
New Delhi, February 9 Ramachandran, who has been Amicus Curiae in the Ajmal Kasab and Gujarat riots cases in the Supreme Court, was asked to clarify the legal position in the light of a claim made by Prof SAR
Gilani, an acquitted co-accused in the case, that Afzal should have been given a chance to challenge the President’s rejection of his mercy petition before being sent to the gallows. The senior advocate also justified the burial of Afzal’s body within the Tihar Jail complex here immediately after the execution, instead of handing it over to his family. “There is no legal compulsion. The government is free take a practical view. In normal circumstances, you have to hand over the body, but if it is going to result in security complications like the body being carried in a procession and construction of a memorial, I think the state can use its discretion not to hand over the body,” he said. About another contention that Afzal did not get a fair trial, the Supreme Court itself had rejected it in its August 4, 2005 judgment confirming the death penalty awarded to the convict. “We find no substance in this contention. The learned trial judge did his best to afford effective legal aid to the accused Afzal when he declined to engage a counsel on his own,” the court had said.
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Security forces on high alert; Army keeping extra vigil along LoC
“Against the backdrop of Guru’s hanging we have issued an advisory to our border guards all along the international border in Jammu region,” said DIG, BSF Jammu Frontier, JS
Oberoi. “Though we don’t foresee anything on the other side of the border, we have adopted a wait-and-watch policy to see how things unfold in the days ahead,” he added. The officer said the BSF had been maintaining a strict vigil along the borderline. A top Defence source confided to The Tribune that following Afzal’s hanging at the Tihar Jail in Delhi this morning, the Army has sounded an alert in the state. “Being head of the Unified Headquarters, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today issued a communiqué to the Army and paramilitary forces, including commanders of 15 and 16 Corps, to remain in a state of alertness but by this afternoon the communiqué was withdrawn,” he said. While DGP Ashok Prasad has been camping in Srinagar to monitor the situation in the Valley,
IGP, Jammu zone, Dilbagh Singh said the police had made adequate security arrangements in all 10 districts of Jammu region. He said neither curfew nor prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC had been imposed in any district of the Jammu province. The
IGP, however, admitted that there had been stray incidents of sloganeering in Banihal and Kishtwar against Guru’s hanging. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has already appealed for calm and asked the people not to allow vested interests to exploit the situation. An Army officer said though the Army always remains in a state of alertness, extra vigil was being maintained along the LoC following Guru’s hanging. “We all know there are 42 terror camps on the other side of the LoC and 400-500 of terrorists have been moved into various launching pads on the other side. But, as of now things look to be quiet on the other side,” he said.
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We weren’t informed about hanging, says Guru’s family
Jageer Doabga (Sopore), Feb 9 “On Friday night, I was at the nursing home in Sopore town where I work. In the morning, my brother Dr
Ibrahim, who owns the nursing home, informed me about the hanging of Afzal sahib”, said
Tabassum. Asked if the family was informed about the hanging by the government, she said, “Nobody from the government or Delhi informed us.” “We were kept in the dark till the very last moment,” she said. Tabassum had last met her husband on the eve of
Rakshabandan. “That was my last meeting with him,” she said. “We were hopeful that Afzal’s mercy petition would be accepted but that did not happen. Three days back, I had received a hand written letter from him. That was his last communication,” Tabassum said. In the adjoining room, Afzal’s elder brother, Ajaz Guru, was receiving visitors who had come to offer condolences. “I feel sad that my younger brother Afzal Guru was hanged today,” said
Ajaz. “I met my bother last year. He told me that he loves Kashmir, but he was also sure that he would never be released or pardoned,” said
Ajaz.
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Omar urges people to maintain calm
“I appeal to the people of J&K, particularly of Kashmir valley, to not allow the situation to go out of hand. I understand that there is a certain degree of angst as a result of this execution,” Omar said. “There were certain elements who would like to exploit the situation for their own personal or political advantage,” he told mediapersons in Srinagar on Saturday. He said the security forces had been instructed to deal with the situation with maximum restraint. The Chief Minister said he received a call from the Union Home Minister on Friday evening around 8 pm. It was informed that after the completion of all possible legal formalities, the execution of Afzal Guru had been set for 8 am (Friday morning),” Omar said. “Unlike in the case of Maqbool
Bhat, the state government was not required to sign the execution of the death warrant of Guru,” the Chief Minister said. Omar said the state government “had repeatedly and constantly conveyed its concerns to the Government of India on the possible ramifications of Guru’s execution.”
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Valley channels go off air, Net jammed
Srinagar, Feb 9 J-K Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat, Ali Muhammad Sagar, told The Tribune that the state government was compelled to issue these directions. “There could have been a violent backlash had we allowed the news to circulate without monitoring its content,” he said. The minister said that he will urge Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to lift the ban on broadcast of these channels as soon as possible. “The situation demands that there should be strict regulation on the communication flow as our experience in the past has not been good,” the minister said. Earlier in the morning, two national news channels were telecast for few hours. However, as the day progressed, they went off air. and even the private cable operators snapped their telecast. “We were approached by the police to stop
the broadcast of all news channels on security grounds,” a private Cable network operator in Srinagar’s Chanapora area told The Tribune. Private telecom operators also barred the Internet services. However, some BSNL broadband subscribers were able to browse websites. As Internet collapsed, the operations of various departments were badly hit. People resented the breakdown in communication channels, calling it a curb on freedom of expression. “Even the acess to news channels has been taken away. What kind of democracy is this,” said a senior Journalist.
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Guru was a commission agent in fruit business
In a secretly carried out operation, Guru was executed at 8 am today and buried in the Tihar prison premises. Guru had also enrolled himself in Jhelum Valley Medical College in 1988 for his MBBS course but could not complete it. In Delhi, Guru stayed with his cousin Shaukat Guru, who was married to Afshan Navjyot, a Sikh girl who had converted to Islam. 43-year-old Guru's last recorded profession was to have been working as an agent in the fruits business when he was arrested by the police in Kashmir shortly after the Decemeber 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. His wife Tabassum, who had appealed to then President APJ Abdul Kalam for mercy for her husband, now lives in the Valley with their only son Ghalib. Guru also joined the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front for some time. People who know Afzal say he was always good in academics and took equal interest in extra-curricular activities. The Supreme Court, while upholding Guru's death sentence, had termed the attack on Parliament in 2001 as an unparallelled assault on the supreme seat of democracy. — PTI
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Afzal first to be hanged at Tihar after Indira’s killers
New Delhi, February 9 "The last hanging that took place here was that of Satwant and Kehar," Director General of Tihar Jail Vimla Mehra told PTI. Asked about the identity of the hangman who pulled the lever on Guru, she refused to reveal the name, saying "We are not going to give the name of the hangman". A resident of Sopore in North Kashmir, 43-year-old Guru was executed at 8 AM near Jail No 3 in a top-secret operation. A special court had sentenced Guru to death in December 2002 for his role in aiding and abetting the 2001 attack on Parliament which was upheld by the Supreme Court on August 4, 2005. — PTI
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A deluge of comments on social media New Delhi, February 9 "This is a tribute to the victims of the Parliament attack I am happy to hear this news. It made my day," tweeted Anurag Gupta, a theatre artiste from Delhi. "With Guru's hanging law has come full circle. Justice delayed but not denied for a change," Shaleen Khan, a Mumbai-based advertising professional, posted on Facebook. "Glad to hear the news about Afzal Guru. Terrorists must learn a lesson from this," Alka Singh from Lucknow posted on Facebook. Kiran Bedi tweeted: "Afzal Guru case needed a closure. It disturbs some and settles others! Always damned if u do, doomed if you don't! Governance is tough!" — IANS
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Cauvery row Girl refuses to wed criminal
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“The courts have said in judicial verdicts that even the decisions on mercy petitions are open to judicial review. This is different from saying that the death-row convicts have a right to challenge the rejection of their mercy pleas. There is no law that confers such a right to the convicts,” Ramachandran explained when asked about claims to the
contrary.
Jammu, February 9
Srinagar, February 9
New Delhi, February 9
