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IF Md. Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the December 2001 attack on Parliament and hanged on 9 February 2013, in secrecy in Tihar jail, gets ‘elevated’ to the hallowed portal of martyrs to the cause of azadi in Kashmir, a large part of the ‘responsibility’ for the likely deterioration of the situation in the valley will have to be shared by the Union government. The rapidity with which the execution was carried out once President Pranab Mukherjee turned down the mercy petition (it is another matter that this decision had been kept in abeyance for over six years by two previous presidents), without even informing his next of kin (the speed post letter reached them two days after the hanging), foreclosing the possibility of Guru’s family once again appealing to the Supreme Court, does suggest that something more than ‘completing the due process of justice’ was at play. At the least, the handling of the entire process speaks of gross ineptitude and insensitivity.

Equally distressing was denying Guru a final chance to meet his wife and family, a courtesy which, it is worth remembering, was extended to the killers of Indira Gandhi. The assertion by Union Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, that any delay in carrying out the execution or even announcing the date of hanging would have given play to disruptionist politics in the Kashmir Valley, slowly returning to ‘normalcy’ is, to say the least, disingenuous. The situation in Punjab was far from normal when the Rajiv Gandhi government permitted his mother’s assasins to meet their family members before meeting their end. Is the Indian state so fragile that it can no longer afford to extend even basic human courtesies? If so, what does it tell us about the claims of ‘normalcy’ in the valley.

It must be admitted that neither the judicial process not the final judgement in the Parliament House attack (particulary the unfortunate reference that only a death penalty will satisfy the ‘collective conscience’ of the nation) have ever been free of controversy. While no one seriously, and this includes Afzal Guru himself, denies his ‘role’ in the attack, questions regarding the ‘nature of the role’ remain. To thus assert, as many in the government and media do, that Afzal’s hanging has brought an end to this grisly chapter, is debatable. This is why many, and not just those opposed to capital punishment in principle, believe that the decision to award him death penalty and not commute the sentence to life imprisonment was a mistake.

Both the investigation into, and the subsequent judicial process involving the TADA court, the High Court and the Supreme Court, leave many questions unanswered. The speed with which the Special Branch of the Delhi Police cracked the case and arrested those whom they claimed were involved in the conspiracy was bewildering. Parts of the prosecution chargesheet read like extracts from a spy novel. The judgement of the TADA court (for details read the two articles by Nandita Haksar in Seminar, January 2002 and January 2003) which convicted all the four accused, awarding three of them the death penalty, was subsequently overturned by the High Court whose decision was further revised by the Supreme Court. Eventually, two of the four accused were exonerated, a third awarded ten years in prison (subsequently reduced for good behaviour), and only the sentence on Afzal Guru was upheld.

All through this process, many lawyers and civil rights activists argued that the trial process was flawed and that the investigation had failed to follow up on many of the leads thrown up in court. It bears reiteration that Afzal Guru never claimed ‘innocence’; just that his role was not what was ascribed to him and that others, allegedly from the security forces, were involved. Without falling prey to conspiracy theories, it is nevertheless unfortunate that these ‘allegations’ were not seriously investigated, giving grist to rumours that the state might have been engaged in a cover-up. Now we shall never know.

To return to Afzal Guru’s hanging, in secrecy and in haste, without permitting him to meet his family, and now, refusing to hand over his remains for burial in Kashmir – all these speak of an insecure state. The decision, in particular, to not permit a final appeal for commutation in the Supreme Court, unlike, for instance, in the cases of the killers of both Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh (incidently convicted earlier than Guru and still on death row), only strengthens the feeling in the Kashmir Valley that their guilty, even in death, are treated differently. Placing the valley under curfew, enforcing a media blackout, and switching off mobile telephone networks only added to a surreal atmosphere, further fuelling discontent. Should we then be surprised that Guru, in the valley, may well in popular memory be reincarnated, not as a ‘terrorist conspirator but as a martyr to the cause of freedom?

Harsh Sethi