PC's comment on Afzal Guru - Congress distances itself& PC was Home Minister when ....

Mohammad Afzal Guru was  a terrorist convicted for his role in the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. He received the death sentence for his involvement, which was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court.  It is stated that he  received terrorist training in Pakistan and was found to have played a central role in the Parliament attacks having provided hideout and logistics for the terrorists in New Delhi. Tracking of phone calls between him and the militants, minutes before the attack, proved his role, which he later confessed to. In 2001, Guru was arrested, along with three others. The initial conviction and sentence was made by a special Prevention of Terrorism Act Court in 2002, which was confirmed in 2003 by the Delhi High Court. In 2005, his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of India.  In Feb 2013, his mercy petition was rejected by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee and he was hanged at Delhi's Tihar Jail on  9 February 2013.

Sad to read that a seasoned politician  P C Chidambaram now wakes up to the possibility that Afzal Guru may not have been that involved in the attack on Parliament. It took 15 years and a bunch of students creating a ruckus for him to have this epiphany and wake up to a whole new ball of wool !  To be absolutely fair, it is the BJP who inherited this issue and had nothing to do with it except being in power when the assault took place and 14 people were killed including 5 terrorists intent on committing mayhem. The UPA government had over a decade to exercise whatever options it wanted to, including setting the self-confessed man free. It did not take any action. In 2013, the Congress cabal was keen to show its credentials to its vote banks and counter the speeding Modi bandwagon.  Now suddenly Mr P Chidambaram has got a public change of heart and is indicting his own party too on a man against whom evidence of involvement was way beyond reasonable doubt. He was charged under section 121 of waging war against the state. The Vice President’s car was targeted. The death toll of innocents was 9 people: would Mr PC ever ask their families how they feel.

Afzal Guru was unrelenting and stated that the 13 December attack was linked to the Kashmir issue.  The Supreme Court rejected his final appeal against the death sentence. The President of India rejected his mercy petition. It was an attack on the symbol of the country. It led to a troop movement of 100,000 soldiers to the border in preparation of a possible war. Afzal took sleuths to his hiding places from where explosives were discovered.

Is it blatantly challenging the Apex Court too for the decision ?  expectedly Congress on Thursday distanced itself from its senior leader P Chidambaram’s remark that the case of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013, “was perhaps not correctly decided”. “The decision of the honourable Supreme Court in the Afzal Guru case is final and declaratory of law and justice in the case. It is futile to reopen this debate since the matter has attained judicial finality. Every citizen and instrumentality of the government is bound in law to accept the judgment of the final court,” party spokesman Ashwani Kumar told reporters.  Chidambaram was Union Home minister when Afzal Guru’s mercy plea was rejected by the previous UPA government in 2011.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

26^th Feb 2016.