Wednesday, Dec 18, 2002
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By Anjali Mody
Nitya Ramakrishnan, counsel for the accused, Afsan Guru alias Navjot Sandhu, asked the judge to award a reduced sentence amounting to the period of incarceration that Ms. Guru had already served. She has been convicted of concealing knowledge of the conspiracy (the maximum sentence for which is 10 years imprisonment) and not for any other offences for which she was charged, Ms. Ramakrishnan said: "She has already suffered an extremely difficult period of incarceration on the strength of a law (POTA) which the court found was not applicable to her". Pleading leniency, Sima Gulati, counsel for S.A.R. Geelani, said the evidence heard during the trial did not suggest that her client was involved in any overt acts relating to the conspiracy. The court should consider the fact that Geelani had no direct connection with the terrorists and that he had no history of involvement with any criminal act whatsoever. Arguing for a reduced sentence for Shaukat Hussain Guru, his counsel also said that Guru had no previous history of involvement in any wrongdoing and that the evidence showed that his role was, at best, peripheral. The Public Prosecutor, D.P. Agrawal, asking for the maximum sentence of death for Geelani, Guru and Afzal, said this was justified since the Parliament attack was "the rarest of rare cases". He also argued against a reduced sentence for Geelani, saying that he was a university lecturer and would therefore have known exactly what was happening. Arguing against the death sentence, Ms. Ramakrishnan said that before the judge extinguished "with his judicial pen the life of a human being", he must "consider whether it was at all right to take life in the name of justice". This was a time when the Government was "trading conditions", including the waiver of a death sentence for those it wanted extradited, she said. The state's or society's need for retributive justice was also misplaced, she said since it bore at least some responsibility for the "alienation" that results in terrorism. Ms. Ramakrishnan asked the court, when awarding the sentence, to consider what drove people to terrorism. The Judge interrupted her to say "that is a question that can be answered only by Osama bin Laden. They are the ones having schools and manufacturing factories for this type of people.'' Ms. Ramakrishnan said the belief that the death sentence had a deterrent value did not hold, since the people who committed acts of terrorism and were brought into the country from outside, had not been caught. The state had no control over the real conspirators, such as Ghazi Baba and Masood Azhar, who were foreigners (declared proclaimed offenders) and was, in fact, complicit in releasing them from jail. The people before the court were mere "cannon fodder". They were Indians, however ''misguided'. Two of them, Geelani and Guru, had no history of past misdemeanours. And the third, Afzal, a surrendered militant, had once attempted to rejoin the mainstream. In dealing "with our own" Ms Ramakrishnan said the court should show firmness, but also a human face. Outside the court, Geelani said: "I am innocent and I will fight it out". Guru said: "We believe in justice".
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