MUMBAI — India on Saturday hanged a man who was convicted of a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament that killed nine people.
The hanging of Afzal Guru, a 43-year-old militant with the group Jaish-e-Mohammad, came more than a decade after the Dec. 13, 2001, suicide attack on India’s Parliament in which five gunmen opened fire, killing nine people, including security officials and a journalist. The execution drew protests from human rights groups concerned about the growing use of capital punishment in such cases.
Mr. Guru was convicted of conspiracy in the plot and sentenced to death by a special court in 2002. In 2004, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death sentence.
After the execution, clashes broke out in Mr. Guru’s hometown Sopore, in the northern part of the Kashmir, and police and paramilitary units were called to restore order. Days before the execution, President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected a mercy plea by Mr. Guru’s wife, according to reports from The Press Trust of India, paving the way for Mr. Guru’s hanging in the Tihar Jail complex, officials said.
The clashes in Mr. Guru’s hometown after his death came despite the region in Kashmir being placed under strict curfew in the anticipation of trouble from separatist leaders, according to reports. Authorities in the Srinagar asked citizens to remain indoors. They also closed the national highway for one day.
Omar Abdullah, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, appealed for peace and calm.
“I understand there is certain degree of angst and there are some people who would like to take advantage of the situation,” Mr. Abdullah said. “I appeal to the people to allow us to get through this with peace and not to restore to violent protests.”
Congress Party officials said that the execution was a sign that India would not tolerate acts of terror.
“Anybody committing any acts of terror will be punished,” a Congress Party spokesman, Rashid Alvi, said. “People of our country and government have zero tolerance for terrorism.”
But the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party criticized the government’s delay in carrying out the execution.
“The attack on the Indian Parliament happened in 2001, that is 12 years ago, which was an attack on India,” the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said.
On Nov. 21, 2012, India hanged Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman from the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, ending an eight-year moratorium on the death penalty and drawing criticism from rights groups, which they reiterated Saturday.
“The hanging of Afzal Guru, following closely behind the hanging of Ajmal Kasab in November, shows a very worrying trend by the Indian government,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment.”
India Executes Man Tied to 2001 Attack on Parliament
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India Executes Man Tied to 2001 Attack on Parliament
