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Opinion
A Killing Most Foul
by Dr.
Amitabh Mitra
 Even
as Shree Manmohan Singh ji retraces the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi in
South Africa by taking the train to Petermaritzburg on 30 September
2006, the very foundation of Gandhian principles are being flouted in
India by ordering the ‘Black Warrant’ against Afzal Guru fixing October
20 as the day he would be hanged in Tihar, New Delhi. The Congress I led
Government feels that Afzal is the kingpin in the December 13, 2001
suicide attack on Parliament. It is a well known fact that the
Government agencies have not been able to extract a confession or
pinpoint him clearly linking him to the attack on Parliament. The
murderers of Nitish Katara and Jessica Lal are acquitted in sham trials;
New Delhi is one place which believes in ‘whom you know and not what you
know’.
Afzal Guru was born in a well to do business family in Doabgah in North
Kashmir. According to his close friend Muzamil Jaleel, Afzal was the
best student in his class in Muslim Educational Trust English Medium
Higher Secondary School in Sopore. Afzal was selected to study Medicine
and he joined the Jhelum Valley Medical College in Srinagar. He wrote
poetry and has flair in reciting impromptu Urdu ghazals. His sheer love
for Urdu poetry that guides him all along; he even named his son as
Ghalib.
In the years of 1985 to 1989, Kashmir was rocked by militancy, the
people became poorer and corruption was rife in everyday life. I had
come back after spending years in Bhutan and was on my way to join a
National Hydropower Project in Kashmir. The ‘Switzerland of India’ was
just a very poor province, its people eking out an existence in misery
due to maladministration and non development by the Government in
Kashmir.
It was during these difficult years, Afzal left his medical studies and
like so many others crossed the Line of Control to take up arms training
in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Years later, Afzal told his close friend Muzamil Jaleel that he "didn’t
fit in his new role" and his romance with the gun had extinguished soon
after he crossed the LoC.
He came back, was promptly arrested by the Border Security Force and was
jailed for several months. After his release, he tried unsuccessfully to
join his medical studies and then went on to join the Jawaharlal Nehru
University in New Delhi. He was hounded by the police and intelligence
wherever he went; his only crime that he had crossed the Loc. Nobody
believed him that he no longer advocates an armed struggle as a solution
to the problem of Kashmir.
His death would herald such an uprising in Kashmir that no political or
military involvement can stop it being torn into pieces. The Pakistan
Occupied Kashmir and the Pakistan Government that once trained him are
also quiet on the issue of death penalty as they believe it would be the
right thing for Kashmir to go up in flames.
Afzal also knows that.
He smiled when the news of his Black Warrant was conveyed to him
He says ‘I have lost my belief in the judiciary, asking for a leniency
from the President would be accepting that I participated in the attack
on the Parliament.
Afzal’s wife Tabasum Guru a nurse by profession is going to Delhi from
her home in Sopore to meet the President.
We would not be able to answer one day when little Galib Afzal would ask
us why his father was killed in Delhi.
October 1,
2006
Top
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Opinion
The Week of October 1, 2006
Gandhi without blinkers: Follow the Mahatma – but
which one? by Rajinder Puri
Baluchistan Vs Pakistan by Ramesh Menon
Musharraf's Leadership by Bluff by Col. Rahul K.
Bhonsle
Mumbai 7/11 Train Bombings: Pakistan's
Involvement Proved by Dr. Subhash Kapila
A Legal Scam, Blessed by the SEC & FASB by
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Mandate Minimum Agenda by J. Ajithkumar
A Killing Most Foul by Dr. Amitabh Mitra
Education in India is coming to Spectacular
Crossroads by Kusum Choppra
Death Lurks in White by VK Joshi
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
Exercise may be Injurious to Health by
Neeta Lal
Baby Battles by Yvonne Barlow
Mother's Identity Crisis by Charumathi Supraja
Migrating in a Man's World by Nitin Jugran
Bahuguna
Battling Black Magic by Gagandeep Kaur
Theatre for Change by Marili Fernandez-Ilagan
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