Azad, Mehbooba seek mercy for Afzal

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad wants the postponement of Mohammad Afzal Guru’s hanging. Afzal faces execution for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament.

Afzal’s hanging on October 20 coincides with Jumat-ul-Vida (the last Friday of Ramzan) and should be postponed, Azad told the Prime Minister, highly placed official sources said. The execution on a holy day would send out a “wrong message” to the people, the sources quoted Azad as telling the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, has said that Afzal should be pardoned. 

Mehbooba, whose PDP is part of the ruling coalition, called for a review of Afzal’s  death sentence, saying this could affect the peace process in Kashmir.  She questioned the wisdom of executing Afzal when India is building bridges with Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.  Mehbooba said, “I’ll suggest that all (political parties) - the Congress, National Conference and PDP and other mainstream parties - should together appeal to the President to change this sentence from death to life imprisonment.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of people took to the streets in the Kashmir Valley to protest the upcoming execution even as life was crippled by a strike called by separatist groups. In Srinagar, police used batons and teargas to disperse protesters who marched through the streets after Friday prayers, demanding that Afzal be pardoned. Large numbers of women joined the protests at several places.