Earlier, Home Secretary RK Singh said Guru's family residing in Sopore in north Kashmir was informed about the decision of the Government that his mercy petition has been rejected. He said, Guru's body will not to be handed over to his relatives and he will be buried in Tihar Jail itself in accordance with the rituals. Prison officials said,Afzal Guru has since been buried inside Tihar jail complex.
Afzal Guru was sentenced to death in 2002 for his role in attack on Parliament in 2001 by a special court and later upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004.
A tight security vigil was put in place across the national capital today to ensure that no untoward incident takes place in the wake of hanging of Afzal Guru.
Curfew is imposed in major towns of the Kashmir Valley a precautionary measure. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is in Srinagar to keep a close on the situation. Addressing a press conference, he appealed people to maintain calm and not allow any body to exploit the situation to meet their vested interests.
Congress said that there is no place of fundamentalism in a democracy. Reacting on the execution of Afzal guru, Party spokesman Digvijay Singh said that he will request to the government to provide infrastructure for fast track courts for speedy hearing of the cases related to terrorism.
BJP has welcomed the execution of Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal Guru. Speaking to reporters in New Delhi BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said that the decision was much awaited.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has also welcomed the hanging of Afzal Guru.
Protests erupt as India executes Afzal Guru for parliament attack
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India hanged Kashmiri
militant Afzal Guru
on Saturday for an attack on parliament in 2001, sparking clashes in Kashmir between hundreds
of protesters and police who wielded batons and fired teargas to disperse the
crowds.
 |
President Pranab Mukherjee rejected a mercy petition
from Mohammad Afzal
Guru and he was hanged at 8 a.m. (0230 GMT) in Tihar jail in the capital,
New Delhi. Security
forces anticipating unrest had imposed a curfew in parts of insurgency-torn
Kashmir and ordered people off the streets.
India blamed the 2001 attack on the
parliament of the world's largest democracy on militants backed by Pakistan, targeting the
prime minister, interior minister and legislators in one of the country's worst
ever militant attacks.
Pakistan denied any involvement and condemned the attack but tension rose
sharply and brought the nuclear-armed rivals dangerously close to their fourth
war. Nearly a million soldiers were mobilised on both sides of the border and
fears of war only dissipated months later, in June 2002.
The hanging was ordered less than three months after India executed the lone surviving gunman of a 2008 attack in the city of Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.
Saturday's execution could help the ruling Congress party deflect opposition criticism of being soft on militancy, as it gears up for a series of state elections this year and a general election due by 2014, while grappling with an economic slowdown.
"Congress has decided to be more proactive in view of the elections, not only in terms of economic policy but also matters like the hanging of Afzal Guru," said political analyst Amulya Ganguli
."The Congress has now deprived the BJP of a propaganda plank," he said, referring to the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Government officials dismissed suggestions that electoral politics played a role in the decision to execute Guru.
In major towns of Indian Kashmir, where
security forces
have battled a Muslim separatist insurgency for decades, barricades were erected
and hundreds of police and paramilitary force members were deployed.
"The hanging of Afzal Guru is a declaration of war by India," said Hilal
Ahmad War, leader of a separatist faction.Authorities shut down internet services and blocked social networking sites to try to stop unrest from spreading. The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state, Omar Abdullah, made a televised appeal for calm.
Scuffles also broke out in New Delhi between Hindu activists and demonstrators who gathered at a city-centre protest site to condemn the hanging, a Reuters witness said.
Five militants stormed the heavily guarded parliament complex in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, armed with grenades, guns and explosives, but security forces killed them before they could enter the main chamber. Ten other people, most of them security officers, were killed in the clash.
Guru, an Indian national, was convicted for helping organise arms for the
attackers and a place for them to stay. He had denied any involvement in the
conspiracy.
India said the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group was responsible. The group fights Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
The hanging last year of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani militant involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, after a long lull in executions, prompted speculation that India would move quickly to execute Guru.
But unlike Kasab's execution, which sparked celebrations in the streets, Guru's case was seen as more divisive.
Some Kashmiri leaders warned that hanging Afzal would fuel the revolt in India's part of the Himalayan region in which tens of thousands of people have been killed since 1989.
Curfews were imposed in Srinagar, the region's summer capital in the Kashmir valley, and major towns including Baramulla, Guru's home town.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, both of which claim the region in full and rule it in part. They have fought two of their three wars over the region.
India has long accused Muslim Pakistan of arming and funding militants to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Pakistan says it only provides moral support to the fellow-Muslim people of Kashmir, who Pakistan says, face heavy-handed Indian rule.
The dispute, a legacy of the division of the sub-continent at the end of British rule, is the main factor souring relations between the neighbours.
India said the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group was responsible. The group fights Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
The hanging last year of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani militant involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, after a long lull in executions, prompted speculation that India would move quickly to execute Guru.
But unlike Kasab's execution, which sparked celebrations in the streets, Guru's case was seen as more divisive.
Some Kashmiri leaders warned that hanging Afzal would fuel the revolt in India's part of the Himalayan region in which tens of thousands of people have been killed since 1989.
Curfews were imposed in Srinagar, the region's summer capital in the Kashmir valley, and major towns including Baramulla, Guru's home town.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, both of which claim the region in full and rule it in part. They have fought two of their three wars over the region.
India has long accused Muslim Pakistan of arming and funding militants to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Pakistan says it only provides moral support to the fellow-Muslim people of Kashmir, who Pakistan says, face heavy-handed Indian rule.
The dispute, a legacy of the division of the sub-continent at the end of British rule, is the main factor souring relations between the neighbours.
