Afzal Guru commemoration: #ShutdownJNU, is what protesters demand

8 years ago

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Furor over the commemoration of Afzal Guru’s execution anniversary at the JNU campus has caught a section of Left-leaning students of Delhi JNU in cross wires. However, while the majority tends to condone Afzal Guru’s execution in 2013, a few unanswered questions about his trial evoked a serious debate.

#ShutdownJNU, says social media condemning the celebration of ‘terrorist’ Afzal Guru by a section of students in Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on his execution anniversary. The outraged collective conscience of the nation, as put across by Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, considered them subversive, pseudo Leftists and anti-nationals.

The clamour to dismiss citizen privileges of the students is becoming louder. BJP and the Right wing are infuriated by the act, which has ‘insulted’ the national sentiment more than ever. The dissident students called Afzal Guru ‘a victim of flawed judicial system’. In turn, a frantic Arnab called them people “more dangerous than Maoist terrorists”.

Social media platforms and Indian newsrooms are abuzz criticising the ‘shameful act’ staged by the students at the JNU campus.

Such being the situation that accounts for an overwhelming national fervour against ‘pseudo Leftist’ students who bade to ‘glorify’ a hung ‘terrorist’, it would go totally unjustified to not ponder on a few unanswered questions, which may have prompted the students to stage the alleged shameful event.

Who defines the collective conscience in the law books and which law manual justifies capital punishment for the sake of appeasing ‘collective conscience’?

“The incident (Parliament attack 2001), which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender,” said a 2005 Supreme Court judgement on Afzal Guru’s case.

Why was the prime accused denied appropriate legal aid? Or who denied legal aid to him?

Though the Court offered eight choices of lawyers to Afzal Guru, none were ready to represent him. He even wrote a letter to All India Defence Committee stating the absence of a proper legal aid. Later, the designated Court appointed a junior lawyer as his legal aid. It was alleged that his designated lawyer did not even visit Guru at Tihar jail, where he was housed.

Was Afzal Guru hung on the basis of tampered and fabricated evidences?

In a newspaper article by author Arundhati Roy, she pointed some glaring facts in connection with the possibility of tampering and fabrication of evidences against Guru.

“During the trial, it emerged that the hard disk of the laptop had been accessed after the arrest. It only contained fake home ministry passes and fake identity cards that the ‘terrorists’ used to access parliament – and a Zee TV video clip of the parliament house. According to the police, Guru had deleted all information except the most incriminating bits. The police witness said he sold the crucial sim card that connected all the accused in the case to Guru on 4 December 2001. But the prosecution’s own call records showed the sim was actually operational from 6 November 2001,” said Roy in an article in ‘The Hindu’ dated February 11 2013.

Why was Afzal Guru condemned to death even when there was a dearth of direct evidences against him?

Afzal Guru’s execution was widely condemned for the lack of evidences against him, which establish his involvement in criminal conspiracy. Even the Supreme Court observed a lack of direct evidence against him except circumstantial ones.

“As is the case with most conspiracies, there is and could be no direct evidence amounting to criminal conspiracy…,” observed the apex court of India in 2005.