For all those who don't know Afzal guru was the mastermind behind the parliament attack which happened around 10 years ago. He has been given death sentence by Supreme Court of India yet it doesn't look like anything will happen in near future! Now the general belief in people is that the delay is because he has sent a mercy petition to the president and he will be hanged when his turn comes and when president rejects the petition. But president would reject the petition when it reaches him (her in this case). In reality the congress govt have been sitting on the file for years and have not sent the file to the president! Now the basic question is "Why?" and the answer is there for all of you to see. Another bigger question is-
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When Parliament was attacked on December 13, 2001, the Congress and all political parties described it as an attack on democracy. Ten years later, the Congress dismisses an important letter on the punishment to be given to Mohd Afzal Guru as `routine’ and tucks it into some dog-eared file.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs sends a letter to the Delhi Government on April 27 asking the government headed by Shiela Dikshit to furnish its views on the mercy petition of Afzal Guru. The letter gets buried and the MHA sends a reminder. Again no reply. And the Home Ministry of the Delhi Government is under Shiela Dikshit herself!
The MHA letter was rather strongly worded, but the Delhi Chief Minster chose to sit over the file. In fact, the Delhi Government has been sitting on Guru's file since September 2006!
This is not the first time that Sheila Dikshit is getting a letter from the MHA located a few blocks away from her office. A similar notice was sent in April last year. At that time, Dikshit had said she would study the matter after the elections and take appropriate action. But, a year after the Lok Sabha elections, Dikshit has not decided on the matter.
It was in August 2005 that the President sought the MHA's views. The MHA, in turn, sought the opinion of the Delhi Government as the comments of the government of the state where the crime has been committed are sought before deciding a mercy petition. That is where Afzal Guru is stuck - on the table of Shiela Dikshit.
So who is fooling the public? The MHA or the Delhi Government or both?
So, is the Congress going soft on terrorists just for petty vote bank politics? One Congress leader sits over an important letter on Afzal Guru, another senior leader - Digvijay Singh -- visits Azamgarh, the hotbed of terrorists and give the Batla House encounter in Delhi a new spin.
Probably Shiela Dikshit does not want to take any action on the letter before the Commonwealth Games. If Guru is hanged now, there may be a backlash and this is the last thing that the Delhi Govt wants before the Games. One minor backlash and the Games would be `up for a toss'.
"I have not received any letter (from the MHA). Maybe the Home Department (of the Delhi government) received it," said Dikshit. Maybe? This is no routine letter on the weather or traffic jams in Delhi. This was a letter on a terrorist who attacked the symbol of democracy.
The reminder from the MHA came just a week before a Mumbai court sentenced Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab to death for the 26/11 attacks.
The letter had a sense of urgency as Kasab cannot be hanged before Afzal Guru. Questions are bound to arise on why.
"We are aware questions may be asked on what we are doing about the Afzal Guru case once the file pertaining to Kasab's death sentence lands with us if somebody files a mercy plea," a senior MHA functionary was quoted in The Indian Express.
Source: R Shankar, India Syndicate
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