KL Report
Srinagar
“Being stunned to silence and shocked to the bones by the heart-rending and destabilizing act which the largest democracy committed in the visible darkness in a pal of secrecy I am yet to regain my full consciousness. Today after paying a visit to the family of Afzal Guru along with other civil society members after all the days of strangulation, through curfews ,clamp down and killings , concertina wire blockades and communication shutdown, I felt re-energized by their calmness ,their fortitude and their resignation before God especially by his wife and his son”, said Kashmir Centre for Social and Developmental Studies (KCSDS) Chairperson Hamida Nayeem in a statement issued here.
“It is only then I could gather some strength to write my reaction to the gruesome and ghastly hanging of Afzal Guru. Besides the judicial errors, fabricated evidence and executive chicanery , ‘(that resulted in the death sentence being executed), still supreme court of India could not prove him to be directly involved in the parliament attack and had to redefine judicial norms to execute him for satisfying the jingoistic nationalistic majoritarian ‘conscience’of India and throw away the universal principles of justice and fairplay”, she added.
She said Afzal had been hurriedly executed in spite of being the 22nd number in those who were on the death row. “It speaks volumes of all the dirty politics behind the deed. Was it to stop the riding horse of Modi or to outsmart BJP and hence scuttle their onward march of electoral gains that a Kashmiri had to be hanged (because only by hanging a kashmiri could the govt satisfy the ‘conscience’ in the mainland India and face no fierce opposition in the country”, said adding “Or was it to inflict a final blow on the collective consciousness of Kashmiris to bring home the message that their resistance to Indian domination will never be heeded and only put down with brute force, that the Govt is hell-bent on denying justice to Kashmiris even though it will have to brazenly redefine justice in terms of the satisfaction of the jingoistic majority’s lust for Kashmiri blood”.
She said that by hanging Afzal the authorites have only rejuvenated the resistance movement and completed the alienation of Kashmiris. “The persistence and vivification of Kashmiri’s longing to be free from Indian repression and control symbolizes the defeat of the Indian state and her militarization in Kashmir. And the psychological defeat is much more powerful and painful than the actual physical defeat .By refusing to return the body they show monumental stupidity because the absence of his body in Kashmir is much more powerful in public memory than its presence”, she added.
“And if after all Afzal was to be hanged for allegedly attacking ‘ the temple of democracy’ how many Indians need to be hanged for actually trampling over the democratic rights of Kashmiris including the right to self –determination and attacking their democratic institutions?”, she asked.
