Jamia Journal Independent Student-run News Website of Jamia Millia Islamia (a Central University)
In what was clearly a show of protest, a group of few dozen students that mostly comprised students from Kashmir, along with a few others, offered Namaaz-e-Janaza (funeral prayers) for Afzal Guru after Dhuhr (afternoon) prayers in the lawns of Jamia’s Jama Masjid on Tuesday Feb. 12, 2013.
The general sentiment among the students who took part in the funeral service was that the execution of Afzal Guru was a great miscarriage of justice. Everything from his trial to his execution was carried out in a manner that can only be deemed as unfair and unjust.
Expressing similar sentiments, the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association (JTSA), along with academics of other universities, released a press statement that read:
This House condemns in no uncertain terms the hanging of Afzal Guru by stealth and in secrecy, disallowing him the last judicial resort that was due to him. We condemn the callous denial to Afzal Guru the last opportunity to meet with his family members.
There is ample documentation to demonstrate that Afzal Guru’s trial was vitiated; that his legal defence was compromised; that fabricated and forged evidence was submitted to, and accepted by the court, the highest of which, admitted while sentencing him to death that this was done to satisfy the ‘collective conscience of the nation’.
Mohammad Afzal Guru was convicted in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, and was sentenced to death by a special Prevention of Terrorism Act Court in 2002. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of India in 2005. On 3 February 2013, his mercy petition was rejected by the President of India Pranab Mukherjee. He was hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail at 8 a.m. on February 9, 2013.
Interview:
Listen to a minute long interview with a student who took part in the protest funeral service:
[powerpress]
