A day after the former Home Minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram defended “holding a different opinion on Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s execution,” Guru’s wife Tabasum Guru on Friday said these remarks were “too late” and aimed at “vote bank politics.”
Ms. Guru accused Mr. Chidambaram of “acting as mute spectator” when a decision to execute Guru was taken in 2013.
“In fact, Mr. Chidambaram supported the execution of my husband. There is no need to issue such a statement now,” she said.
She also accused the Congress government of disallowing “handing over the personal belongings of Guru or his mortal remains.”
“People are well aware that Afzal was not involved [in the Parliament attack]. Even the Supreme Court sentenced him to death saying ‘to satisfy the collective conscience of Indian society’,” she added.
Vote bank politics“People like Mr. Chidambaram are rubbing salt into our wound. It’s for creating a vote bank in the name of Afzal. People involved in Guru’s execution are now claiming that his case was wrongly decided,” she said.
Ms. Guru termed the move of JNU students “to raise their voice against the hanging as a slap in the face of India.”
On Thursday, Mr. Chidambaram told The Hindu that “one can hold an honest opinion that the case was not correctly decided and the degree of involvement of Afzal Guru was not correctly assessed.” “If someone holds that opinion, he doesn’t become an anti-national. He’s just holding a different opinion,” he said.
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