Unforgettable injustice to Kashmiri leader

Many may have not known anything about Mohammad Afzal Guru, but his execution and burial in Tihar Prison of Delhi on February 9, 2013, brought to light many facts and raised questions in the minds of Kashmiris living on any side of the Line of Control or in Rawalpindi-Islamabad or elsewhere in Pakistan, which they love from the core of their heart.

Born in a middle class family of Aabbagh village of Baramulla District, Guru was an honest fruit vendor who graduated from the Delhi University in 1994.

The Kashmiris settled in the UK proudly told this scribe he was a law-abiding citizen engaged in fair business to support his family, but he never inspired to earn lot of money. However, being a humanitarian, he had genuine concern for others and a desire to peacefully use his right to self-determination.

Unfortunately, he did not know one has to pay for speaking what's true and doing what is right.

He would not submit to threats of police who after failing to entice Guru for some ulterior motive tried to extort money from him on various charges. The police had other means to trap the young man for his gesture of defiance.

Guru was eventually arrested on December 15, 2001 by Delhi police and sentenced to death on December 18, 2002 under Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). He was accused of being a collaborator of persons who allegedly attacked the Indian parliament on December 13, 2001. The allegation against the man who loved his motherland administered willfully by India could not be proved as it had no substance in it.

A Kashmiri family asked from Birmingham: why more than 11 years of solitary confinement failed to really produce in concrete form what the Delhi government had conceived? "Had there been some hidden truth in the case against Guru it would have bared it sooner in the prison cell and the accused would have spoken up in the court. But despite fierce pressure he remained patient to wait for radical wisdom and sanity to prevail upon the judges," according to some unbiased Indian non-Muslims who requested anonymity.

A judge who believes in delivering justice to all, irrespective of caste, creed and colour, has to be unprejudiced, impartial and free from any pressure from any side. That's the demand of justice.

There is a difference between an accused and a convict, and an accused is not a convict unless a charge against him is lawfully proved true on the basis of some believable concrete evidence. Then comes the stage to decide how to punish and to what extent.

Who does not want to live as lawful citizen to serve homeland even after 'confession' under torture, conviction and punishment. There's always room in judicial system, whether Indian or Pakistani, for grant of mercy.

What flabbergasts the octogenarians and the youths on either side of the Line of Control is the apparently unjust act of execution of Afzal Guru within a week of rejection of his mercy petition by the president of India. That amounts to denying Afzal Guru his legal right of judicial review which had been granted even to the assassins of Prime Minister Indra Gandhi: there are precedents in the UK and America, they argue.

Worth-noting is the fact that the Delhi High Court sentenced Guru to death in 2002 at a time when communal feelings were at peak in the country. When the case came up before the Supreme Court it admitted "the evidence against Guru was circumstantial and there could be no direct evidence amounting to criminal conspiracy". But it also stated: "the incident that resulted in heavy casualties and has shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender."

Amazingly, as reported by media, the only evidence against Guru was a telephone set with a SIM card and a laptop which had no data except names of the alleged attackers.

As the story goes, all the five attackers were shot dead on the spot by the security forces without identifying any of them or establishing any connection with Afzal Guru.

zasarwar@hotmail.com