Okay if Afzal hanged, we don’t defend terrorists: Cong

NEW DELHI: Even as the government drags its feet over the mercy petition of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal ���Guru���, Congress on Friday attempted to duck criticism over the delay saying that it was okay if Afzal���s execution is carried out.

���Congress is not in the business of defending Afzal Guru or any other terrorist,��� party general secretary Digvijay Singh told reporters in Indore, adding that the party should not have any problem if punishment given to any terrorist is carried out.

Mr Singh���s statement is perhaps the first instance of the ruling party openly backing the Parliament attack convict���s execution. So far, there has been little progress on his mercy plea ��� forwarded by the President to MHA in late 2006 ��� with the Congress governments both in Delhi, under whose jurisdiction the crime was carried out, and at the Centre showing no hurry in taking a view.

The stand of the UPA ��� articulated on separate occasions by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P Chidambaram and his predecessor Shivraj Patil ��� has been that Afzal���s petition cannot be rushed as it was only the 22nd among the 28 mercy pleas pending with the President. ���There are cases much above in that list where the death penalty is being reviewed, mercy petitions have been pending and no decision has been taken to execute the death sentence. And therefore, to take up Afzal Guru���s case as an isolation, is improper,��� Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a press conference in Mumbai as recently as April 14.

Interestingly, Mr Chidambaram even went to the extent of arguing that deciding Afzal���s petition in isolation, before other pleas higher in the order, would lead one to suspect that ���you are looking at it through the religious prism.��� His predecessor Shivraj Patil had earlier gone a step further, comparing Afzal���s case with that of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian prisoner on death row in Pakistan who is actually a case of mistaken identity, and suggesting how one could demand hanging of Afzal when they were seeking pardon from Pakistan for Sarabjit Singh.

The government also insists that a decision on clemency involves careful scrutiny of the death row order as solid legal grounds must be found to justify overturning of the verdict from the highest court of the country. As put by Mr Chidambaram, ���Mercy petitions in India are examined through well established procedures resulting in a delay in implementing death sentences.���

Of course, the NDA has refused to buy any of these arguments, which it says are only an excuse to delay the hanging of Afzal so as not to anger the minorities. BJP prime ministerial candidate L K Advani had argued that clemency petitions, especially involving terrorists waging war against the nation, can be decided in a day. ���Terrorists feel this is their government and are having a free run,��� Mr Advani had alleged at a rally in February 2009.

Mr Digvijay Singh on Friday, however, hit back at the NDA, asking why Mr Advani, who was home minister during the six years of NDA rule, did not decide on a single mercy petition in that period. These petitions included those moved by the killers of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.