Attacking Parliament is ok?

Going by the mercy pleas put forward to stop the carrying out of the death penalty handed out to Mohammed Afzal Guru, who masterminded the attack on Parliament five years ago, it would appear that the significance of the crime has been forgotten by even politicians in important office. Those who attacked Parliament on December 13, 2001, came very near to being able to eliminate most of India's top political leadership, and actually killed eight people. Yet, the killer of Indira Gandhi was hanged and his mercy petitions rejected while a case is being made to stop Afzal Guru's hanging. The former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, has argued that those in favour of hanging Afzal Guru have no idea what will happen in Kashmir if he is hanged""the line given by others like J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, separatist leaders in the state, and now even leaders from Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party. Some even argue that several events in Kashmir are retribution for the hanging of JKLF leader Maqbool Butt more than two decades ago! Indeed, it is entirely possible that there will be a fresh bout of violence in the troubled valley if and when Guru is hanged. But the last thing the government should want to do is to give in to such blackmail""which is especially out of context when the issue is a mercy petition to the President.

The culprit has had a fair hearing at different levels of the judicial system, his death sentence has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, and no one can argue that the crime was not the most serious imaginable. If he is to be spared the extreme punishment, then the country should decide whether it wants a death sentence at all""and there are many who hold the principled position that it should be abolished. But so long as it exists, does this case merit an exception being made?

India has seen one effect of leniency in the past. The NDA government had to release Maulana Masood Azhar following the Kandahar hijack of an Indian Airlines plane, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which Azhar founded, after his release is supposed to have masterminded a series of terror attacks on the country, including the one on Parliament. Giving Afzal Guru life imprisonment allows for this possibility to be repeated at some date in the future. There is little doubt that Afzal Guru's hanging could have been timed better""no one can deny that hanging a Muslim on a Friday in the month of Ramzan, shortly before Id, is not a smart thing to do but that is not a date set by the government. What is most unfortunate in this whole episode is that the Congress does not think it worthwhile to make a clear statement of the party's position on the case, especially after the stand taken by its chief minister in Jammu & Kashmir.