In Afzal’s native Kashmir some ‘moderate’ voices have lent their support to the militant and separatist leaders demand for clemency for the man. One of the better-known separatist leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is the present day favourite of the Islamabad regime, lost no time in utilising his presence on the US soil to seek American intervention for saving Afzal from the gallows. Pakistan has made its own contribution in internationalising the Afzal issue further.

Mirwaiz is always quick to shed tears for those who get killed while killing the ‘oppressive’ Indians. Never mind that the very people the Mirwaiz supports so ardently have driven some of these ‘oppressive’ Indians away from their homes in Kashmir. He is entitled to dream of becoming the lord of Kashmir, except that his critical gaze never reaches across the Kashmir border to see how his own ‘brethren’ on the other side of the Line of Control (LOC) treated by the regime whose patronage is essential for his own good and, in fact, survival. Mirwaiz claims to speak on behalf of the Kashmiri people but refuses to face them in a poll.

Dramatising the ‘save Afzal’ campaign, his supporters brought his family—mother, wife and a seven-year old son—to Delhi, paraded them before the media and had them trudge to Rashtrapati Bhavan with a clemency appeal. The media carried touchy accounts of how the family’s woes will multiply, including psychological harm to the kid, should Afzal be hanged. Of course, the woes of the victims of terrorist bullets count for nothing.

The militants, as could be expected, have warned of further intensification of their attacks if Afzal is not pardoned; they have termed the sentence on Afzal as a ‘blot’ on the Indian judicial system and its ‘secular’ fabric. That is something, coming from the people who have vowed not to stop their jehad--irrespective of the fate of Afzal--till they see the entire world, not just India, rid of the infidels.

Expectedly, the Sangh Parivar has launched a counter-campaign that will not allow any clemency for Afzal. The battered and bruised BJP thinks that a pardon for Afzal after his sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court will provide just the push it needed to revive its fortunes. But the BJP could be as wrong as the Kashmiri militants who have warned that a dead Afzal would ‘inspire’ thousands of youth to take to militancy.

Does anyone really believe that a presidential pardon for Afzal would lead to an end, much less reduction, of bloodshed by the Pakistan-backed terrorists or that it will wean away the misguided youths from the path of militancy?

In this day and age there is a lot that can be said in support of abolition of the death penalty, which appears to be a relic of medieval times when nobody thought an eye for an eye policy was wrong. The birth of active human rights movement has created an opinion against the death sentence all over the world. Most European nations have abolished this form of extreme penalty for criminals.

The European Union members are very reluctant to entertain extradition pleas from countries where death penalty is still on the statute books. Portugal agreed to send the Mumbai gangster Abu Salem who is a prime accused in the Mumbai serial blast of 1993 from its Lisbon prison only on an ‘assurance’ from India that he would not be awarded the death sentence if he was found guilty in an Indian court.

United States of America claims to have a more open and ‘civilised’ society and an ‘impartial’ judiciary that assures ‘fair trial’. It is also the torchbearer of human rights, the champion of all champions of freedom, liberty and what not. Yet, it has retained the death sentence. It does not matter that some of its states have done away with it.

While there may be lobbies within the US working for ending the death sentence, the point is that it continues to be regarded as a legitimate and justified sentence for certain crimes. And ever since the US became conscious of terrorism—only after 9/11—many of the liberties enjoyed by its citizens and which it had allegedly extended to even aliens are being restricted or flouted quite brazenly. The US has been looking for sterner punishments to tackle the menace of terrorism; it certainly does not believe that terrorists deserve to be greeted with garlands of roses.

In India, the majority of people would appear to favour the death sentence for terror related crimes, while a relatively smaller but more vocal section thinks otherwise. Now, India need not draw its inspiration from the US but those who have launched themselves vigorously into ‘saving’ Afzal seem to suggest that the debate over the death sentence began and ended with Afzal. Their concern is the death sentence for Afzal, not others who will follow him—unless, perhaps, they too happen to be ‘freedom fighters’ from Kashmir.

Hitching the death sentence debate exclusively to an act of terrorism or to someone who still glorifies acts of terrorism and shows absolutely no signs of remorse for his crimes, will not be acceptable to an overwhelming majority in India. There are many thousands of Indians who have seen close relatives and friends gunned by terrorists but have suffered silently. The type of high profile protests they are witnessing in regard to Afzal is an affront to their sensibilities. So is the allegation that Afzal did not receive a fair trial. The impressive array of his famous supporters who sit on dharnas and introduce his family to the media punctures the claim that Afzal did not have access to lawyers to defend him.

The ‘save Afzal’ campaigners have raised the hackles of lot of Indians who think that here we have a bunch of well-known public figures who are touched by the ‘plight’ of a terrorist but care nothing about the hundreds and thousands of Indians who have been killed by terrorists for no fault of theirs. The attack on parliament is no ordinary attack on a worn-down building. Parliament is the symbol of Indian pride and democracy, even if it is flawed and imperfect. It is clearly not a case of pardoning someone who committed a ‘lesser’ crime. The President has a lot to think before he takes a decision because his ‘clemency’ is subjected to judicial review now that the Supreme Court has accepted the Soli Sorabjee theory.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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