(Reopens DEL117)

Criticising the government for carrying out the execution of Guru without giving him opportunity to meet his family, the lawyers said under the rules the family or friends can claim body of an executed prisoner even after it is buried. The lawyers, however, did not gave details of the rules which they mentioned. Claiming that Guru did not get a "fair trial", the lawyers said he was a "victim of prejudice and injustice" built into the criminal judicial process. "We strongly disagree with the reasoning in the Supreme Court's judgement saying that Afzal Guru had to be hanged to 'satisfy the collective conscience of Indians'. Many Indians across the country have condemned the hanging," they said. Haksar and Pancholi said the family had asked them to make arrangements for their stay in Delhi and provide security following which they approached a Lok Sabha MP of the "relevant constituency" through which they contacted the resident commissioner of Kashmir House who agreed to allot rooms for them. Both the lawyers claimed that they have been engaged with the "Kashmir question" since 1990s and were part of the fact finding teams which "exposed" the human rights violations in the wake of insurgency in Kashmir.