Never asked for clemency for Afzal, says Azad
Making a neat U-turn, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that he never urged the prime minister to grant clemency to Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: Making a neat U-turn, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that he never urged the prime minister to grant clemency to Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal.
His first public comment on the issue — after a prolonged silence on his reported mercy plea — comes after the BJP attacked him and the Congress over the issue. A section of his own party leaders also distanced themselves from his reported stand.
His clarification seems to have come after a political counselling from the Congress high command, which is fully aware of the BJP’s attempt to use the Afzal issue as a political plank to target the UPA regime.
Mr Azad sought to emphasise that he had never taken a pro-clemency stand. “It is sad to say that no one, neither the politicians nor the media, sought any clarification from me on the issue. In Chandigarh, I only briefed prime minister Manmohan Singh about two issues — increase of Haj quota for the state and the agitation over Afzal’s hanging that was taking place in the Valley. After briefing a couple of reporters, to my wonder, next day it was projected that I had sought clemency for Afzal,” Mr Azad told reporters at a book-release function in New Delhi.
Mr Azad, however, also attempted a balancing act by saying that personally he was opposed to the concept of capital punishment.
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“If one is kept in jail for the rest of his life, he or she will die inch by inch,” he said. He also made it a point to add reports attributed to him, though ‘inaccurate’, helped in containing the popular agitation against Afzal’s death sentence in the Valley. The Azad camp has been maintaining so far that his reported clemency plea was made keeping in mind the political compulsions in Kashmir.Asked about why he chose to remain silent for weeks after the eruption of the controversy, the chief minister quipped: “I do not run a 24-hour news channel that I should keep on making comments every now and then. I have a government to run and, moreover, when the statement attributed to me, rightly or wrongly, puts a lid on the agitation, there is no harm in remaining silent. After all, silence is golden at times.”
Though Mr Azad presented a reluctant face, when answering the reporters’ questions on the issue, given his style of politicking not many believe he would have made a statement unless it was planned.
But the fact remains that neither the chief minister nor the prime minister’s office denied reports that Mr Azad had placed the clemency plea before Mr Manmohan Singh when the two met in Chandigarh for the chief ministers of North India conclave. Mr Afzal’s clemency plea, filed before the president by his wife, is now pending with the home ministry.
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