Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru has been hanged in New Delhi. The valley of Kashmir has been placed under an indefinite curfew to prevent violent protests.
Guru was hanged at 0800 hrs in cell no 3 of Tihar jail, Home Minister Shinde told reporters.
Earlier the President of India had dismissed his petition for mercy.
The Indian government was under immense pressure from the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party to hang him.
Many see it as a political decision to blunt the BJP’s opposition ahead of the general elections due next year.
Guru is the second Kashmiri after the JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Butt to be hanged. His hanging comes barely two days ahead of Butt’s 29th death anniversary.
Butt later became a rallying figure for the separatist movement in Kashmir, where an armed conflict has killed tens of thousands of people.
A prominent Indian lawyer, Kamini Jaiswal has strongly criticised the Indian government for not allowing Guru to see his family before going to the gallows.
We have done it in a manner as if we were a “blood thirsty” nation, she told NDTV.
However India’s home secretary RK Singh said the family had been informed by registered post about the President rejecting Guru’s mercy petition.
A large number of people gathered at Guru’s residence in Kashmir’s Sopore town as news of his execution came in.
Unconfirmed reports say ten people were injured after police used force to disperse the crowd.
Clashes In Baramulla
An indefinite curfew has been imposed in all major cities and towns in the Kashmir valley to prevent violent demonstrations.
Police and paramilitaries have been deployed in strength. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said Army had not been called out.
However residents in Baramulla district, 55 km from Srinagar, have reported that the Army and police fired at demonstrations wounding at least 12 protesters.
Buried at Tihar
Afzal Guru has been buried inside the premises of the jail.
“We will follow the jail manual and act according to the law. Afzal Guru will be buried with full religious rites inside the jail,” Home Secretary R.K Singh had told reporters in New Delhi.
Before Guru, the JKLF leader Muhammad Maqbool Butt was also buried in the same jail premises.
Separatist groups have been demanding the return of Butt’s mortal remains for burial in Srinagar, where a grave has been reserved for him in the martyr’s graveyard at Eidgah.
The authorities have given no reason for not handing over guru’s body to the family.
But observers say the authorities fear hundreds of thousands of people would visit his grave if he were to be buried anywhere in the valley.
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