Afzal Guru did not get fair trial: AI

The Amnesty International has said Afzal Guru, who was hanged by India on February 9 in New Delhi’s Tihar jail, did not get a fair trial.
According to KMS, “We as an international organisation for human rights do feel that there wasn’t an impartial probe and trial in Afzal’s case,” said the three-member AI team led by its director programme for India, VK Shashi Kumar, in an interview in Srinagar.
They said that the AI had officially written to the Indian president urging him to reconsider Afzal’s death penalty. They said that the Amnesty was favouring the demand of return of Afzal’s remains. “They (family) deserve the right to ask for the mortal remains and we support their demand,” they added.
The three member team comprising VK Shahshi Kumar, G Ananthapadmanabhan and US-based researcher Christine Mehta is presently on a visit to the occupied territory.
The team members said that they had sought an appointment with the Indian-held Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to hand him over the letter to seek repeal of draconian law, Public Safety Act, from the territory.
“Chief Minister refused to meet us,” they said, adding that he was not serious in repealing the PSA.
“If he (Omar) really wants to repeal PSA he can simply issue an executive order to do so,” they added.
Stating that to get PSA repealed from occupied Kashmir was their single point agenda, the AI team members said that under the garb of PSA, political leaders in the territory, particularly in the Valley, were put under house arrest.
G Ananthapadmanabhan said that it was not the time to seek a temporary amendment, but a complete revocation of the controversial law. “PSA is such a law that is entirely against the international human rights laws, as this law interferes in the democratic rights of the civilians,” he added.