BJP questions government on Afzal Guru’s mercy plea

NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday asked the government to come clean on a mercy petition filed by Mohammad Afzal Guru, a convict sentenced to death in the 2001 parliament attack.

Party spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy told mediapersons here that people of the country wanted to know if the Delhi government or the union home ministry were taking a decision on Guru’s mercy petition.

Guru, a resident of Sopore in the Kashmir Valley, was found guilty of plotting the Dec 13, 2001, terror attack and was sentenced to death by a trial court in December 2002. The Delhi High Court confirmed the death penalty in October 2003.

The Supreme Court in August 2005 upheld the capital punishment given to Guru for his role in the conspiracy behind the terror attack.

The BJP’s response came after Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Monday refuted a newspaper report which said that the home ministry had sent a reminder the state government, asking it to send its comments on Guru’s mercy petition.

Responding to queries from reporters, Dikshit said: “I have not received any letter.”

Afzal Guru’s wife, Tabassum, had filed a mercy petition to the president after the apex court verdict.

As per the laid down procedure, the president sought the home ministry’s views on the mercy petition in 2005.

The procedure on mercy petition also requires the home ministry to seek comments of the state government in whose jurisdiction the crime, for which a death penalty is awarded to a convict, has been committed.