Pro-Afzal strike cripples life in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Normal life in Kashmir Valley was crippled on Friday following a complete shutdown against the hanging order of Mohammed Afzal, convicted for his role in the December 2001 terror attack on parliament.

Work in almost all state government offices was badly affected as shops, businesses, transport, educational institutions and banks were shut in Srinagar and other towns.

Friday's strike call was given by Syed Ali Geelani and supported by Hizbul Mujaheedin, the Kashmir Bar Association and other groups.

Geelani had been placed under house arrest as a precautionary measure.

Security in the Srinagar was high and police and paramilitary troops in strength were out on the streets to maintain law and order.

Groups of youths took to the streets in the Khanyar area of downtown Srinagar on Friday morning and burnt tyres and shouted slogans demanding the release of Afzal.

The city has been tense for the last three days after a Delhi court issued orders Tuesday that Afzal be hanged on Oct 20.

"We have made elaborate security arrangements to maintain law and order in the city and other towns," said a senior police officer.

The Supreme Court had on August 4 last year upheld the Delhi High Court judgment confirming the death sentence awarded to him by the trial court.

Apart from Afzal, there were three accused in the case - Shaukat Hussain, Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru, wife of Hussain, and S.A.R. Geelani, a lecturer in Delhi University.

The apex court had acquitted Geelani and Afsan Guru from all charges and had reduced the death sentence awarded to Hussain to 10 years' imprisonment.

However, it upheld the judgment of the high court in sentencing Afzal to death for actively participating in the conspiracy to attack parliament and waging war against the Indian state.

In its judgment the apex court characterised Afzal as a "menace to society", whose "life should become extinct" to satisfy "the collective conscience of society".