Lemyao Shimray
Mohammad Afzal Guru has been sentenced to death by The Supreme Court of India on a ground that he must DIE to satisfy the collective conscience of Indian nation. Afzal was arrested on the charge of conspiring the 13th Dec, 2001, Parliament attack case and his execution was fixed on 20th of October 2006. The verdict got ‘Automatically stayed’ with the family filing a mercy petition to the President of India.
SAR Geelani, Saukat Guru and Mohammad Afzal had been awarded with death sentenced in connection with the Parliament attack issue. But the Court then acquitted Mr SAR Geelani and upholds the session court order for the two accused. Later the Supreme Court upholds the High Court Judgement death sentence for Afzal and sends Saukat to 10 years imprisonment.
The real Pakistani mastermind, (Ghazi Baba, Tariq Ahmad and Massod Azhar) behind the attack as claimed by the State have not even been put on trial whereas, Mohammad Afzal who was not involved in the actual attack on Parliament was richly awarded with death sentence in spite of the poorly fabricated proof supplied in the Court. He did not kill or even injure anyone and the Supreme Court had acquitted him of charges of belonging to any terrorist organization or terrorist gang under POTA but still he is sentenced to death without being given an opportunity to defend himself. He did not get a lawyer of his choice and was denied a fair trial. He was tortured and humiliated even to extent of making Rag pickers have sex with him through his anus. Today the death sentence of Afzal reminds the people of Kashmir of how the India State hanged Maqbul Bhatt in the 1980s. It was soon after his execution that the Kashmiris took to armed resistance. Once again Afzal’s death sentence has united all Kashmiris across ideological lines.
A section of the media and the Hindu fascist forces thinks that by hanging Mohammad Afzal without even listening to his story is a legitimate assertion of nationalism. If the courts had heard Afzal’s story they would have realised that his case cannot be judged or separated from the story of Kashmir Valley and its tortured history of oppression and domination. It is illegal to condemn Afzal without understanding and taking into account the political context of the conflict between Indian state and Kashmiri people. If a man like Narendra Modi, who was held responsible for the death of myriads of Muslims during the Gujarat riots, is free today how can Afzal die for the satisfaction of the collective consciousness of the society? Are we talking about Democracy or DemoCRAZY?
On October 21, 2004 the Kashmir times carried Afzal’s wife’s appeal. In her appeal letter, Tabassum wrote
“…All over India people have condemned the attack on Parliament. And I agree that it was a terrorist attack and must be condemned. However, it is also important that the people accused of such a serious crime be given a fair trial and their story be fully heard before they are punished…In 1990 Afzal was attracted to the movement led by JKLF, like thousands of other youth. However he stayed there for only three months without getting training. My husband wanted to return to normal life and with that intention he surrendered to the BSF.
Perhaps you will not realise that it is very difficult to live as a surrendered militant in Kashmir. But he decided to live with his family in Kashmir. Throughout the period that he lived in Kashmir the Indian security forces continuously harassed Afzal and told him to spy on people they suspected. They use to regularly take my husband to their camps and torture him to extract information. He was kept in freezing water and petrol was put into his anus, they gave him electric shock in his penis and hung upside down.
You will think that Afzal must be involved in some militant’s activities which are the reason why the security forces were torturing him. But you must understand the situation in Kashmir. Every man, woman and child has some information on the movement even if they are not involved…by making people into informers they turn brother against brother, wife against husband and children against parent. Afzal wanted to live quietly with his family but the Special Task Force (STF) would not allow him to. He was arrested again and given death sentence on charge of masterminding the Parliament attack.
There was no one to represent Afzal in the lower court. Whenever my husband wish to say something the judge would not hear him out and showed his communal bias in open court. In the high court one Human Rights lawyer offered to represent Afzal. But instead of defending Afzal, the lawyer began to by asking the court not to hang Afzal but to kill him by a lethal injection. My husband never expressed any desire to die but the consequences left him not to have faith in Indian sign of justice.
I appeal to you to ensure that my husband is not condemned to death and he is ensured a fair trial. Surely your conscience will not allow you to be a party to the death of a fellow human being who has not been represented in the court and who has not had a chance to tell his story. The police have made him falsely confess before the media even before the trial stand. They humiliated him, beat him, tortured him and even urinated in his mouth. I feel deep shame to talk about these things in public but circumstances have forced me.
Will you speak out at the injustice my husband had faced? Will you speak out on my behalf? I am of course fighting for my husband’s life, for the life of my son’s father. But I also speak as a Kashmiri woman who is losing faith in Indian democracy and its ability to be fair to Kashmiri Muslims.”
“WHY MUST WE NOT ALLOW MOHAMMAD AFZAL TO DIE” is the acidic truth engraved on the Indian Supreme court by Society for the Protection of Detainees’ and Prisoners’ Rights (SPDPR). The society has been formed by a group of men and women from every corner of India who came together while campaigning for the acquittal of Syed Abdur Rahman Geelani, the Delhi University teacher framed in the parliament attack case. They in the course of campaigning became aware of the complex political issues relating to the question of political prisoners in Indian jails.
They saw that the overwhelming fear forced many to remain silent even when Mr. Geelani was sentenced to death without a shred of evidence. Witnessing the undermining of democratic norms and values they aim to expose the fact that hundreds of people have been incarcerated only because they belong to a religious community, a particular geographical area or are sympathetic to a particular movement. A growing number of these prisoners are Muslims, victims of Islamophobia, the main ideology of the war against terror. The simple truth is to free all political prisoners and detainees in the jails all over the country.
Outside the Tihar Jail when Tabassum and her son Ghalib along with his lawyers and SPDPR members came out after meeting Afzal, the media thronged on them. Squeezing and toppling on each others camera and faces. For them its news but for the six years old boy Ghalib it was a scene he never expected. He screams and cried, panicked at not knowing what is happening and the media got the best shot! While after some statements given to the press Tabassum makes her way to the waiting taxi pleading in urgency to open the door. Panicked and shaken when the taxi hit the road Ghalib says “There were lots of Big Bad guys out there!” Once we were preparing for the protest in Jantar Mantar, Delhi and Ghalib proudly showed me the pamphlets which have a picture. It was of his father and him when they were free men. “Do you know who this boy with my father is?” I shook my head surrendering to the total oblivion of the history attached to the picture, and he replied back proudly “that’s me and my father…” Ghalib, six years old boy considered his father as his best friend.
He came to know through his classmate that his father will be hanged. After coming back from school he tried to hang himself from the ceiling fan without knowing what exactly people do hang themselves or they were hanged or that it takes the life of the person. Later he confessed to his mother that he wanted to feel what his father will undergo while being hanged.
If you feel that Afzal must not DIE to satisfy the collective conscience of Indian nation. If an urge is there to help his family and show solidarity, Please send SMS from your mobile as Op no to 6388 on NDTV (Op space no) and Nat n to 9090 on Sahara News channel (Nat space n).
Kuknalim!
(shimrayalem@yahoo.com)
