In what can bring in huge embarrassment for the Congress, Congress leader Shahshi Tharoor today wrote on Twitter account that: “I think that hanging of Afzal Guru was both wrong &badly handled. Family should have been warned, given a last meeting & body returned.”
Tharoor’s remarks came after five Jammu and Kashmir lawmakers called Guru’s hanging a ‘mistake’. The Congress MLAs have given a written undertaking admitting that not allowing his family to meet Guru was a mistake.
Guru was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013. The UPA government kept news of the execution under wraps till it was over and none of the family member was intimated.
Meanwhile, several separatists leaders were detained or put under house arrest and prohibitory orders clamped in Srinagar in the wake of protests called by them on the second anniversary of execution of Afzal Guru today.
Curfew-like restrictions were imposed in various areas of Jammu.Life in rest of Kashmir valley was also affected as separatist groups here called for a strike today and on February 11 on the anniversaries of hanging of Guru and JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat respectively.