Afzal Guru’s Mercy Petition Had Never Reached Kalam

Afzal Guru’s Mercy Petition Had Never Reached Kalam

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 11:47 PM IST
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New Delhi : Did then President APJ Abdul Kalam never receive the mercy petition of Parliament terror attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru filed by his wife? Just after Dr Kalam’s death, noted civil rights lawyer N D Pancholi alleged that the home ministry was so eager to hang the Kashmiri that it never forwarded the petition to the President. Sushil Kumar Shinde was then the home minister.

Pancholi said that ever since Guru was arrested, the home ministry was determined to execute him and the Parliament attack convict had in fact lost all hope in the Indian justice system. Guru neither participated in the Parliament attack and nor was he present at the spot, but he was awarded death for providing logistics to the terrorists, all of whom were gunned down. Guru was hanged on February 9, 2013.

After the death warrant was issued to Afzal Guru in October 2006, his wife and mother called on Dr Kalam and a mercy petition was filed by his wife after she found him to be considerate, Pancholi said. Dr Kalam demitted office in June 2007.

Pancholi said, “Advocate Nandita Haksar and I had helped draft the petition. Nandita suggested that we should seek an appointment with the President of India — Dr APJ Abdul Kalam — on behalf of Guru’s mother, wife and minor son for a personal hearing. I was sceptical as never before had a President given any such opportunity to the family of a death row convict. Moreover, the Union Home Ministry was dead against Guru, determined to ensure his execution. Nevertheless, I wrote to the President. To our surprise, within two days I received a phone call from Rashtrapati Bhawan that Dr. Abdul Kalam, the President, had accepted our request and we were asked to meet him the day after,” Pancholi said.

“Guru’s wife, mother and minor son and Nandita Haksar and I went to meet the President. Nandita and I were part of the delegation as advocates. The meeting lasted for about one hour. Dr Kalam first ascertained whether the ladies from Kashmir could talk in Urdu or Hindustani. Getting an answer in the affirmative, he said that he would like to hear the family first. Both the mother and wife placed their woes before him and he listened patiently and attentively to both of them, with intermittent questioning. He was affectionate to the child who was about eight or nine years old. He looked serious, and appeared considerate. At the end of the meeting he said that he would look into it.

“… But we came to know later that the mercy petition filed by him was never sent to Dr Kalam, with or without the comments of the ministry. By that time Dr Kalam had come to entertain doubts about the death sentence in itself. He raised the question as to how only those persons who belonged to the poorer and marginalised sections of society were getting death sentences!”

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