Kashmir’s legislature will debate whether to ask New Delhi for clemency for a Kashmiri man who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, a lawmaker said on Saturday.
Independent legislator Abdul Rashid said he had submitted a resolution to the Kashmir assembly speaker, seeking clemency for Afzal Guru, a businessman from the northern Kashmir. “Let the house resolve that Guru be granted amnesty on humanitarian grounds against the death sentence granted to him by the Supreme Court of India,” read the resolution.
Rashid said executing Guru could have “serious consequences” for the political situation in Kashmir, where large protests against his sentence had been held in the past.
Guru was convicted of plotting the December 13, 2001 raid on the Indian parliament that left 15 people dead, including five attackers and brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan close to war. Guru insists he was not involved in the plot.
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani had warned New Delhi of major unrest “if such a “blunder” as executing Guru was carried. “India cannot control the situation here –notwithstanding its military power,” Geelani said last month. “Guru’s death will create hundreds of Afzal Gurus in Kashmir,” he added.
More than 47,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of a Muslim separatist insurgency in Kashmir in 1989 and anti-India sentiments run high. “The house will discuss the resolution during the upcoming summer session of the state legislature beginning September 26,” Kashmir assembly speaker Akbar Lone told reporters.
Rashid’s move follows the passage of a similar resolution in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu seeking clemency for three men convicted of the 1991 murder of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Last week, a Tamil Nadu court stayed the trio’s execution for two months. India’s home ministry has called on the president to reject the mercy petition filed by Guru. The main opposition in the Kashmir state assembly, Peoples Democratic Party, said it would support the resolution.
Indian Kashmir remains under heavy military control but this summer has not seen the cycle of violence and strict curfews that have rocked the disputed Himalayan region over recent years.
Ruling party members as well as the opposition believed that hanging Guru could break the “peaceful atmosphere” in the region that was divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed in full by both nations.