Afzal Guru hanging was both wrong and badly handled: Shashi Tharoor

SRINAGAR: With curfew imposed in parts of Srinagar, Kashmir valley on Monday observed a complete strike on the second anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging, an issue that Congress leader and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor said was badly handled by his party’s government at the Centre two years ago.

The police fired at a demonstration in Palhalan near Pattan, killing Farooq Ahmad Bhat and injuring another youth, Riyaz Ahmad Bhat, as the protesters demanded return of the mortal remains of Guru, who was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013.

“I think the hanging was both wrong & badly handled,” Tharoor wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Family should have been warned, given a last meeting & body returned.”

The issue has remained in news for the past one week during the lobbying for Rajya Sabha elections. One of the independent lawmakers Engineer Rashid had said he would vote for Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad only if his party apologisises for Guru’s hanging.

The statement was issued barely minutes before the voting and it was signed by five Congress MLAs – Vikar Rasool, GM Saroori, Mohammad Amin Bhat, Haji Abdul Rasheed and Gulzar Wani. However, Azad did not sign the statement.

Thought the party did not apologise, the statement said the way the hanging was handled by Manmohan Singh-led government was a mistake. The statement said Guru’s clemency request was justified and suggested his mortal remains should be returned to the family.

PDP slammed Congress for resorting to “worst political opportunism” to secure a vote.