AISA’s Statement on Hanging of Afzal Guru

Hanging of Afzal Guru: Travesty of Justice and Democracy

The hanging of Afzal Guru at the crack of dawn on 9 February, done in an extremely secretive manner without even informing his family, will be recognised by every justice-loving person as a case of justice being compromised to appease the communal fascist forces with an eye on the elections.

It is well known that Afzal was a surrendered Kashmiri militant who had given himself up to the BSF in 1993 and had since been working in the shadow of the Special Task Force of the Kashmir police, and was implicated in the December 13, 2001 Parliament attack case. He had no lawyer to represent him when the trial court convicted him without any direct evidence and yet the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in the name of satisfying ‘the collective conscience of society’ even as the High Court and the Supreme Court passed adverse remarks on the shoddy nature of investigation and dubious quality of evidence produced by the police.

Nobody has ever been hanged in this country for the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, for all the anti-Muslim violence including the horrific Mumbai and Surat riots of 1992 and the 2002 Gujarat genocide, or for the massacres of dalits, adivasis and other oppressed sections by private armies or the state. Far from satisfying the ‘collective conscience’ of the Indian society, the hanging of Afzal Guru only exposes the double standards of justice followed by the ruling establishment.

Faced with growing popular opposition and resistance on every front, the Congress party and the UPA government are desperately trying to appease the BJP and the communal-fascist brigade. The democratic movement in the country will reject and resist this Congress-BJP collusion and intensify the battle for justice and democratic rights for the common people of India.

9.2.13