Thursday, July 8, 2010

'Is Afzal Guru son-in-law of Cong?'


Updated on Friday, July 09, 2010, 10:31 IST
Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari on Thursday lamented the Congress for delay in hanging Parliament attack case convict Mohammed Afzal Guru.

Addressing a party rally in Dehradun, Gadkari said, “I want to ask the Congress leaders if Afzal Guru is their son-in-law. It is a party full of fearful people. They can never fight with terrorists and can never get rid of terrorism. It is a party which will bow down in front of terrorists and can never protect India.”

The Congress has asked Gadkari to apologise for his statement.

Gadkari, however, has refused to apologise, saying he stands by his words.

A medicine and surgical instrument dealer from Jammu and Kashmir, Afzal Guru, was given the death penalty in 2002 on charges of hatching the conspiracy that led to a deadly terrorist attack on Indian Parliament in December 2001 leaving over a dozen people dead.

His sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005. The sentence was scheduled to be carried out on October 20, 2006. But his execution was stayed after his wife sought clemency.

BJP has often alleged in the past that the Congress-led UPA government and the Shiela Dikshit-led Delhi government were delaying the hanging of Afzal Guru for minority appeasement and vote-bank politics.

BJP has already expressed the hope that President Pratibha Patil would go by the government recommendation that Parliament attack-convict Afzal Guru be hanged, saying he was "a symbol of treachery and terrorism" who deserved capital punishment.

Even reminding the Congress of its duty to hang Afzal Mohammad becomes a crime because Congress’s heart is not in hanging him. Congress should be called Appeasement Party of India.

http://www.zeenews.com/news639642.html


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