India defers Afzal Guru's execution

NEW DELHI—The Indian Home Ministry has decided to defer the execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru as his wife submitted a mercy appeal with the President of India.
Even while he continues refusing to file an appeal for clemency, his wife Tabassum on Tuesday filed a mercy petition at the Rashtarpati Bhawan. A spokesman of Rashtarpati Bhawan confirmed that they have received the petition and said it will be duly processed.
Home Ministry sources said that a high-level meeting took note of the mercy petition and decided to put on hold the hanging till a decision is taken on it.
All such petitions are referred by the President to the Home Ministry for advice.
The President has not yet forwarded Tabassum's petition but the Home Ministry decided to defer the hanging after confirming its receipt in his office.
Tihar Jail legal officer Sunil Gupta was summoned to Home Ministry and asked to put preparations for hanging on hold.
In a related development, Tabassum and his elder brother Ajaz Ahmed disassociated from the Non-government organisations fighting against his death sentence and asserted that the family was banking on mercy of President APJ Abdul Kalam and peaceful support for Afzal in the Kashmir Valley.
Afzal's mother Ayesha Begum also stayed away from a press conference organised by one such NGO, Society for the Protection of Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights, led by Prof. S A R Gillani who was acquitted by the High Court in the same case and the acquittal confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Ajaz told reporters outside Tihar Jails that he had met his brother Afzal and later Afzal's mother, wife and his 7-year old son Ghalib also met him. In both meetings, Afzal told them that he would not submit any mercy petition. "At the moment, he did not agree for mercy petition."
"However, if his wife's petition to the Registrar of the Rashtrapati Bhawan is rejected, we would again persuade him to appeal for clemency," Ajaz said.
His wife, however, told Afzal during their meeting that she had already moved a mercy petition to the President on her own and appealed to him to think of the family. He, however, did not budge but sought to convey to those agitating back in the Kashmir Valley for his release that it should be peaceful and without any violence.
Tabassum's mercy petition seeks the President to commute the death sentence of Afzal on six grounds, including that of not getting fair trial. Other grounds cited are:
The Supreme Court had acquitted him of the charge of being a member of any terrorist organisation;
The Supreme Court also rejected his confession before Police that was used by the trial court to sentence him;
Delhi High Court had noted in its judgment that the Police had fabricated telephonic evidence against him;
The sentence to him was based on assumption and the court did not rely on any credible evidence; and
The Supreme Court had noted in its judgment confirming the death sentence that this was to satisfy the collective conscience of the society and that amounts to not taking into account the legality.
Though the entire trial was held under the repelled POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) under which the maximum punishment that Afzal could have been awarded for participating in the conspiracy is life imprisonment, the recourse to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to sentence him to death under Section 120.
Tabassum told reporters that her husband got no justice from the lower or the apex court and hence he has lost confidence in the Indian judiciary. "He did not agree yet to himself file petition for mercy since his confidence in the Indian system is shaken," she said.—Agencies