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Author: MC Joshi
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 18, 2006
In protest of the delay in the implementation of death sentence awarded by the Supreme Court to the mastermind of Parliament attack, Mohammed Afzal Guru, relatives of the security personnel killed five years ago returned the medals awarded to them to the President on December 13.
In Parliament, when Leader of the Opposition LK Advani sought to know the Government's stand on Afzal's clemency-petition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi accused Mr Advani, the then Home Minister, of failing to protect Parliament.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said, "Statistics of the past 10 years reveal that on an average it takes seven years to decide upon a mercy petition. The law will take its own course." He tried to justify it by saying that the NDA Government took four years to decide mercy petitions in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case. However, the ugly face of politics came to the fore when Mr Patil accused some political forces of having instigated the family members of the martyrs to return the medals.
Hurt and angered by Mr Patil's remark, the mother of a martyr said, "In what capacity did he pass such remarks for the family of men who sacrificed their lives to save politicians like him? We are proud that they died fighting the terrorists who had attacked Parliament. Government has politicised even the orders of the Supreme Court. First, they should hang Afzal immediately and then the Home Minister should seek an apology from the family members of the martyrs."
Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad and two former Chief Ministers of the State publicly pleaded for clemency for Afzal when the law of the land still permitted him to file review and mercy petitions. Mr Farooq Abdullah even warned that hanging him would set Kashmir on fire and there would be turmoil in the rest of India as well.
Television channels have been flooded with so-called human right activists' questioning the Supreme Court verdict and even the provisions of capital punishment. Such interference with the rule of law is a matter of grave concern for the people of a country being bled by terrorists for the past 15 years. This must stop and the Government must understand that terrorism cannot be fought by hollow speeches in Parliament and shallow debates on television.
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