Date:25/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/25/stories/2008112559391100.htm

National

“Advani to blame for delay in Afzal hanging”

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Monday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani for the delay in the execution of the Parliament House attack convict Afzal Guru.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari pointed out that as Home Minister and later as Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Advani “virtually created a traffic jam of death-row cases in the pipeline by not taking any decision.”

He said legally it was not possible to hang a man convicted on August 4, 2005 by the Supreme Court when death-row cases dating back to 1997 and 1998 were still pending and were pending even when Mr. Advani was Home Minister.

Shyam Manohar, Sheo Ram, Prakash, Suresh, Ravinder and Harish were given the death sentence by the court on October 21, 1997; R. Govindasamy was convicted by the court on April 22, 1998; Mohan and Gopi got the ultimate conviction less than a month later; Murugan and some others were convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and the death sentence was pronounced by the court on May 11, 1999… the list of 28 pending death-row convicts goes on.

By the time Mr. Advani relinquished his position in North Block after the defeat of the National Democratic Alliance in May 2004, twenty-two death-row convicts had been awaiting implementation of the sentence pronounced and confirmed by the court.

“Now, for the last several years the BJP has been saying ‘hang Afzal.’ In almost every election rally Mr. Advani says the Congress is not hanging Afzal because of vote-bank politics. Why does not Mr. Advani tell us why he did not hang the 22 convicts, including those convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi? Was he politically motivated,” asked Mr. Tewari.

Afzal Guru’s case is 27th in the list of 28 death-row cases awaiting implementation. “Legally speaking, the government cannot pick up the 27th case first leaving the other 26 pending. Had Mr. Advani cleared the cases pending when he was Home Minister, Afzal Guru’s case would have been higher on the list,” Mr. Tewari said.