afzal guru

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Nothing can be more disgusting than the announcement of the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil made in Parliament today that the mercy plea of Mohammed Afzal may take something like seven years (yes, 7 years) to get decided. That means, this Government will complete its remaining 2 years or so and then the next (BJP?) Government will complete its own 5 years. Thereafter, the new Congress Government (?) will again assume office in the year 2014 or so, and then the decision on the mercy plea of Mohammed Afzal would be taken. A matter which can be completed in just 7 days (ultimately you have to study a few thousand papers and apply your mind this way or that way) will take 7 years or more. Thankfully, this statement did not come from Patil yesterday when the martyrs of the Parliament attack were being remembered on the completion of 5 years of that horrifying incident. So, now we’ll remember the martyrs only after 7 years! It shows how slave is the Government to its own processes that it is wholly incompetent to handle with the expeditiousness required in a matter like this where the Parliament of the country was attacked. What can we expect from the Government in less important matters if it cannot respect the country’s highest institution, i.e., the Parliament? So, you give another 7 years to Mohammed Afzal and meanwhile some terrorist organisation will again hijack your plane somewhere with 200 passengers (or do something else of that sort), and then to save those 200 lives, you are forced (yes, I agree that the word forced is a light word; I should have used some strong word instead) to release Afzal, so that he could further plan another attack on the Parliament! Or something similar! Is it not an open invitation to the terrorist organisations to ravish this soft country! What a shameless thing to do! But, the culprit appears to be same again – the UP assembly elections. The election commission should perhaps think of holding the UP elections at the earliest date possible. [Read my earlier article on the question of death penalty to Mohammed Afzal : Show mercy at your own peril.] Update (December 14, 2006 at 09.40 hrs IST): In an important development, yesterday, family members of those killed in the attack marched to the Parliament and retuned their gallantry medals as a protest against the delay in the implementation of death penalty given to prime accused Mohammed Afzal. They were led by M S Bitta, chief of All India Anti Terrorism Front (AIATF). "We had hoped that he would be punished by December 13, 2006, but it seems that there is no end to these deliberations. This delay is only making our lives more miserable. It seems some people don’t want us to live in dignity," said Ganga Devi, wife of sub-inspector Nanak Chand who died fighting the militants. Update (December 14, 2006 at 09.45 hrs IST): In another important development, Mohammed Afzal yesterday moved the Supreme Court by filing a curative petition seeking the reversal of the death sentence, requesting it to revoke the judgment convicting him and sentencing him with death penalty. His main ground in the 38-page petition seeking "curation" of the Supreme Court’s August 4, 2005 judgment is that he did not get legal assistance of his choice. Mohammed Afzal, who is involved in the case relating to the terrorist attack on Parliament, sought a stay on the death sentence during the pendency of his fresh curative petition filed now