Topic of the week for discussion: 14 th to 20 th Feb 2013

Topic: Afzal Guru hanging

• In a top secret operation Saturday morning, the 2001 Parliament attack case convict Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged and buried inside the Tihar jail complex.

• With this ended the decade-long uncertainty over the execution of the surrendered militant from Sopore, Kashmir, as his mercy petition got caught up in a political slugfest between the Congress-led UPA government and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

• “He was hanged at 8 o’clock… All legal procedures were followed in the execution. The President [Pranab Mukherjee] rejected the mercy petition… on February 3 and after that I gave my approval on February 4… The date and timing [of the hanging] was confirmed by a judicial official,” Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told journalists .

• “His family was informed about the decision of the government to reject his Topic mercy petition… This was done through Speed Post.”

Introduction • The letter clearly did not reach in time: Guru’s family in Sopore, including his wife, said they received no word about his imminent execution.

• The Ministry of Home Affairs had rejected Guru’s petition in 2011 and forwarded it to Pratibha Patil, who was President at the time. Ms. Patil chose not to act, but when Mr. Mukherjee took over as President last year, he returned all pending mercy petitions, including that of Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab — the Mumbai terror attack case convict — for reconsideration after Mr. Shinde took over as Home Minister in August 2012.

• But before the Centre gave a go-ahead for the hanging, security across the country, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, was beefed up to avert any backlash. The MHA also issued an advisory to all State governments to remain on high alert.

• Afzal Guru was convicted of playing a central role in the entire conspiracy leading to the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. He had been on death row for the past 10 years since he was first convicted and sentenced by a special court in December 2002, while his death penalty was upheld by the Supreme Court on August 4, 2005.

• In another controversial decision, the government decided not to hand over Guru’s body to his family members and buried it inside the jail complex. “It was a conscious decision… we feared that his funeral could have been used to trigger violence and disturb peace in the Kashmir valley,” a senior MHA official said.

• In November last year, the Laskhar-e-Taiba terrorist Kasab was hanged and buried in the Pune jail after his petition was also rejected by the President.

• Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh were the last persons to be hanged in Tihar Jail on January 6, 1989, in the Indira Gandhi assassination case. • Guru was walked to the gallows Saturday morning at the end of the macabre rite governments enact from time to time to propitiate that most angry of gods, a vengeful public.

• Through this grim, secret ceremony, however, India has been gravely diminished. The reasons for this are not just the obvious ones — among them, that Guru was a bit-actor in the attack on Parliament, and his trial marred by procedural and substantive errors.

• These arguments were examined by the highest court in the country and found wanting. There is one argument, though, that wasn't ever examined — which is precisely why Guru, like scores of other Indians, ended up on death row in the first place.

• The answer has a great deal to do with expedience, and nothing to do with justice.

• The hideous truth is this: judicial executions in India have all the rationality of the roulette table.

• In a signal article published recently in the Hindu. V. Venkatesan noted how the Supreme Court has itself admitted that many of those on death row are there because of“erroneous legal precedents set by itself.” (December 10, 2012)

• Yet, both the judiciary and the government have been reluctant to announce a moratorium on executions until a thoroughgoing review is carried out. This ought not to surprise us: in case after case, the course of criminal justice has been shaped by public anger and special-interest lobbying.

• Indians must remember the foundational principle of our Republic, the guardian of all our rights and freedoms, isn't popular sentiment: it is justice, which in turn is based on the consistent application of principles. For one overriding reason, Guru’s hanging ought to concern even those unmoved by his particular case, or the growing ethics-based global consensus against the death penalty.

• There is no principle underpinning the death penalty in India today except vengeance. And vengeance is no principle at all.

Read further:

Shinde’s defence of the hanging: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/dtSpxscDC7roxYk9htKaLJ/Afzals-hanging-was-not-selective- says-Shinde.html

Arundhati Roy’s criticism of the hanging : http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-perfect-day-for-democracy/article4397705.ece