'Martyr' Afzal Guru gets a grave, right beside Bhat's

Four days after his execution and burial at Tihar jail, Afzal Guru was on Tuesday bestowed the title of Shaheed-e-Watan (martyr of the nation) and a grave, with an epitaph, was set aside for him at Mazar-e-Shahuda (martyrs’ graveyard) in Eidgah here.

DNA was the first to report on Monday about plans for setting aside an empty grave for the Parliament attack convict.

It is the second such grave at the Mazar-e-Shahuda awaiting the mortal remains of a separatist leader. One has been reserved for Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, who was executed and buried in Tihar jail on February 11, 1984, since the graveyard’s establishment in 1990.

“We have put up a gravestone inscribed with a demand for the return of Guru’s mortal remains.... We have demanded that both Maqbool saab and Guru saab’s bodies be returned to us,” said Tahir Ahmad Mir, senior vice-president of a breakaway faction of JKLF. He said it was his idea to earmark a grave for Guru — next to Bhat’s — at the cemetery, which was approved by his party members. Despite a curfew and other restrictions, Mir led a team to Eidgah and put up an epitaph on Guru’s grave.

Meanwhile, Guru’s family welcomed the Centre’s decision to allow them to visit his grave at Tihar, but said they will go there only if the government agrees to hand over his body as well. “...We want the body..., nothing less than that,” said Mohammad Yasin, a cousin at Sopore.

Ishfaq-ul-Hassan l @ishfaq72