SRINAGAR: Three years after he was hanged in the Tihar Jail, the then Home Minister P Chidambaram now believes that his involvement in the Parliament attack was doubted, The Economic Times reported. There was a mass criticism of the hanging as civil libertarians instead the government had rushed to the gallows for political reasons.
“I think it is possible to hold an honest opinion that the Afzal Guru case was perhaps not correctly decided,” Chidambaram was quoted saying by the business newspaper. The report is based on an interview of the erstwhile hawk who had been shifted out of Home Minister before Guru hanging. It was Sushil Kumar Shinde who was the Home Minister when in 2013; Guru was hanged without even permitting the last meeting with his family.
“There were grave doubts about his involvement (in the conspiracy behind the attack on Parliament and even if he was involved, there were grave doubts about the extent of his involvement. He could have been imprisoned for life without parole for rest of his natural life,” he has told interviewer Dhananjay Mahapatra.
Asked that Guru was hanged by the government he was himself part of, Chidambaram has said that he was not the home minister even though he was part of the same government. “I can’t say what I would have done. It is only when you sitting on that seat you take that decision,” the newspaper quoted the former Home Minister saying.
Guru was hanged in post haste and normally he was not in line to be hanged. Even the Supreme Court verdict ruling that Guru should be hanged to address the collective consciousness of the society.
Upholding the trial court verdict, the Supreme Court had ruled: “The gravity of the crime… is something which cannot be described in words. The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender. The challenge to the unity, integrity, and sovereignty of India… can only be compensated by giving the maximum punishment… The appellant, who is a surrendered militant and who was bent upon repeating the acts of treason against the nation, is a menace to the society and his life should become extinct. Accordingly, we uphold the death sentence.”
