ISLAMABAD: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik on Sunday asked the Pakistan government not to make any “hasty decision” on Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh in the wake of Afzal Guru’s execution.
Addressing a gathering of Kashmiri leaders and activists ahead of funeral prayers in absentia in the Pakistani capital for Afzal, Malik said: “I know that some people are demanding that Sarabjit should be hanged. I urge you to make no such demand. That would amount to the same thing as the murder of Guru.”
“I ask the government of Pakistan not to make any hasty decision in this regard,” he added.
Afzal, convicted for his role in the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, was hanged and buried in Delhi’s Tihar Jail yesterday.
In the wake of the execution of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Mumbai attacker, and Afzal, some Pakistani groups and media commentators have called for the hanging of Sarabjit.
Sarabjit has been on death row in a Pakistani jail since he was convicted for alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Punjab that killed 14 people.
His family says he is a victim of mistaken identity.
Malik and other JKLF members yesterday began a 24-hour hunger strike outside the National Press Club to pressure Indian authorities to hand over the body of Guru, who was buried inside Tihar jail, to his family.
They contended that Afzal’s execution would strengthen the movement in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Even Guru’s (Afzal) family was surprised as it was informed three hours after the hanging. What was the emergency? It’s because polls are coming up in India and the Congress government has been facing lots of scandals,” Malik said.
The hanging, he contended, had affected Indian law, democracy the Constitution, and the judiciary.
“There was ego and hatred behind this decision,” he said.
(PTI)
