Jammu, September 02: Had the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly passed a resolution recommending the commutation of the death sentence of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the conspiracy to attack Parliament in December 2001, the BJP would have gone apoplectic.
Omar Abdullah is not wrong. Had the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly passed a resolution recommending the commutation of the death sentence of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the conspiracy to attack Parliament in December 2001, the Bharatiya Janata Party – and a certain muscular TV channel – would have gone apoplectic. As it is, a mere tweet by Mr Abdullah posing that question has them frothing and foaming in the mouth.
Indians have this self-image of themselves as non-violent people. Never mind that we are like everyone else, and in certain circumstances- related to caste, religion and patriarchy-even more blood-thirsty than anyone else. It is another matter that the bloodlust behind the strident calls for carrying out death sentences in some terrorism cases seems born out of frustration with our inability to tackle terrorism.
The Muslim Afzal Guru, who was involved in the Parliament House attack case, seems to be a specially chosen target of the Sangh Parivar, which is not particularly worked up about the efforts to commute the death sentences of Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan, the Tamils convicted for the conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, in which 19 other people were killed, or of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar of the Khalistan Liberation Force, responsible for the bombing outside the Youth Congress office in Delhi that killed 9 people.
–Agencies