As I saw with a bated breath on the morning of 13th December 2001, LIVE if I might add, soldiers in the Parliament battling these five armed terrorists, explosives going off, bullets whizzing past soldiers & journalists, I knew this was not a 'normal' terror strike. Even by our standards - used - as we are to some ghastly ones every now and then - this was a titanic strike. If not in terms of actual number of casualties (recent attacks on Mumbai's Suburban train network resulted in 187 deaths), the attack, come as it did on the symbol of our nationhood was a watershed in our ongoing-seemingly-never-ending fight against terror. That terrorism was here not only to stay but was knocking on the doors of our parliament was more than obvious in an unfortunate way. That was then.
Half a decade after the attack, the investigations are 'complete'. While the main conspirators are still at large, allegedly in our neighboring country to the North (what the heck, it's Pakistan), a man called Mohammad Afzal Guru has been sentenced to death in the case. While even the Honorable Supreme Court of India has upheld the sentence, there is hue and cry about the hanging. The president now is reviewing the mercy petition filed by Afzal himself (much to chagrin of Afzal baiters). The political parties predictably have politicized the hanging (for crying out loud). The right wants Afzal to be hanged, the center is cautious lest they come across as Afzal-lovers (if there is such a term!) and the left doesn't care. Political parties in Kashmir - both separatist & mainstream - have joined the 'Justice For Afzal' campaign, trying to cash in on the Afzal sympathy wave inside Kashmir.
So what is the fuss all about? Why & how is it that a man like Afzal in finding support in some respected sections of the civil society? Why is there a divide on whether Afzal should be hanged? Why on earth is Arundhati Roy - of late, the poster girl of all causes just in India - rallying behind the so-called conspirator of an attack on the symbol of our democracy? Isn't it democracy she swears by? Why can't we just hang the man and do justice to the memory of those who laid down their lives to protect the most sacred symbol of our nation and to the kith and kin of those who fought defending the parliament?
The answers to the questions above are hard to come by. Scratch the surface of the decades of turmoil within Kashmir and end with some confusing pointers but no real answers. Within Kashmir, majority of people believe that the Special Cell of the Delhi Police has framed Afzal. After all cracking such a case with the speed with it was cracked does raise some eyebrows since we are generally very slow in solving cases and dispensing justice (even as I write, Shiv Raj Patil is telling the Parliament that statistics show that it takes Seven years for a mercy petition to be cleared). Add to this is the fact that the common Kashmiri for one doesn't exactly swear by the way Policing works in the country and you can't blame him either. Years of living under draconian laws, an ever-updating list of human right abuses and numerous trips to courtrooms to prove innocence or guilt can do wonders for anyone's faith in the policing & criminal - justice system.
While the cry for a fair trail of Afzal becomes louder, the controversy if nothing else, has brought the whole common-Kashmiri-being-unfairly-targeted issue to the forefront and worse (at least for the Kashmir lobby here in Delhi) has thrown up the larger Kashmir issue open to a younger generation of Kashmiri's whose mindscape was hitherto busy with what normally teenagers are busy with...careers, dates and the works and not talk of which side of the LOC should they belong to!!!
Even as Afzal's hanging becomes a national issue and sessions of the very parliament he allegedly conspired to attack are affected every now and then discussing his hanging and activists come out on the streets to ask for a fair trail to Afzal, I keep wondering why is that the case has taken such a political turn. Notwithstanding the fact that we are a very political nation, this is hardly an issue that needs this kind of a treatment. I mean if there is a scope of debate in the case, its not whether Afzal should be hanged. The debate should center on the role played by the investigative agencies in the case. The debate should ask some uncomfortable questions. It should ask how come such a huge attack was planned and executed in the first place? How is that five random men could come to the national capital, conspire with a surrendered militant and have the gall to attack the parliament? What were our agencies doing till 13th December 2001...sleeping on their respective A***S? Who were these men who carried out the attack? If Afzal was the man who had led the agencies in Kashmir to the dreaded Gazi Baba, resulting in his elimination, how come Afzal wasn't 'tagged'? How come no one was watching him? How come he could conspire the parliament attack right under the noses of the Intelligence Agencies? The debate should address the queries of the kith and kin of the policemen who died fighting the terrorists, it should address the queries of the common citizenry of India, it should provide answers to the kith and kin of Afzal as well...his son & his wife. The least we can do as a nation in the 60th year of our independence is ensure justice to those affected, directly and indirectly by the 13/12 attack.
Weirdly enough by virtue of being a Kashmiri I have often been asked whether Afzal should be hanged!!! Initially I would just stare blankly at the person asking the question wondering why is that it was must for me have an opinion on whether Afzal should be hanged. I personally consider it a travesty that a journalist is expected to have an opinion on anything & everything under the sun...sometimes the sun itself. I would wonder if it was one of those loaded loyalty-testing let's-check-what-side-of-the-LOC-he's-on questions. As the issue unfolded like the reels of a Hollywood thriller, I started to brace myself for having an opinion on Afzal's hanging. I am also for a fair trail of Afzal...as also for the fair trail of anyone who is a victim of the circumstances he grows up in. You see Kashmir in the past two decades hasn't really been a place to teach ones kids binding patriotism. Not saying that we need to brace ourselves for Afzals' (God Forbid) just saying that Afzal's five-year-old son, when he grows up doesn't feel like he has been victimized by the circumstances he grew up in. first published:December 13, 2006, 15:14 ISTlast updated:December 13, 2006, 15:14 IST
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13-12-2001. It is more than a series of numbers separated by hyphens to make a 13th day of the 12th month of the first year of the new millennium. It's a date etched in the memory of a nation forever. It's on this fateful day, five years ago, that a group of 5 fully armed men stormed their way into the shaken, scarred and stirred psyche of a nation. A shocked nation watched the 'drama' unfold and let out a collective gasp.
As I saw with a bated breath on the morning of 13th December 2001, LIVE if I might add, soldiers in the Parliament battling these five armed terrorists, explosives going off, bullets whizzing past soldiers & journalists, I knew this was not a 'normal' terror strike. Even by our standards - used - as we are to some ghastly ones every now and then - this was a titanic strike. If not in terms of actual number of casualties (recent attacks on Mumbai's Suburban train network resulted in 187 deaths), the attack, come as it did on the symbol of our nationhood was a watershed in our ongoing-seemingly-never-ending fight against terror. That terrorism was here not only to stay but was knocking on the doors of our parliament was more than obvious in an unfortunate way. That was then.
Half a decade after the attack, the investigations are 'complete'. While the main conspirators are still at large, allegedly in our neighboring country to the North (what the heck, it's Pakistan), a man called Mohammad Afzal Guru has been sentenced to death in the case. While even the Honorable Supreme Court of India has upheld the sentence, there is hue and cry about the hanging. The president now is reviewing the mercy petition filed by Afzal himself (much to chagrin of Afzal baiters). The political parties predictably have politicized the hanging (for crying out loud). The right wants Afzal to be hanged, the center is cautious lest they come across as Afzal-lovers (if there is such a term!) and the left doesn't care. Political parties in Kashmir - both separatist & mainstream - have joined the 'Justice For Afzal' campaign, trying to cash in on the Afzal sympathy wave inside Kashmir.
So what is the fuss all about? Why & how is it that a man like Afzal in finding support in some respected sections of the civil society? Why is there a divide on whether Afzal should be hanged? Why on earth is Arundhati Roy - of late, the poster girl of all causes just in India - rallying behind the so-called conspirator of an attack on the symbol of our democracy? Isn't it democracy she swears by? Why can't we just hang the man and do justice to the memory of those who laid down their lives to protect the most sacred symbol of our nation and to the kith and kin of those who fought defending the parliament?
The answers to the questions above are hard to come by. Scratch the surface of the decades of turmoil within Kashmir and end with some confusing pointers but no real answers. Within Kashmir, majority of people believe that the Special Cell of the Delhi Police has framed Afzal. After all cracking such a case with the speed with it was cracked does raise some eyebrows since we are generally very slow in solving cases and dispensing justice (even as I write, Shiv Raj Patil is telling the Parliament that statistics show that it takes Seven years for a mercy petition to be cleared). Add to this is the fact that the common Kashmiri for one doesn't exactly swear by the way Policing works in the country and you can't blame him either. Years of living under draconian laws, an ever-updating list of human right abuses and numerous trips to courtrooms to prove innocence or guilt can do wonders for anyone's faith in the policing & criminal - justice system.
While the cry for a fair trail of Afzal becomes louder, the controversy if nothing else, has brought the whole common-Kashmiri-being-unfairly-targeted issue to the forefront and worse (at least for the Kashmir lobby here in Delhi) has thrown up the larger Kashmir issue open to a younger generation of Kashmiri's whose mindscape was hitherto busy with what normally teenagers are busy with...careers, dates and the works and not talk of which side of the LOC should they belong to!!!
Even as Afzal's hanging becomes a national issue and sessions of the very parliament he allegedly conspired to attack are affected every now and then discussing his hanging and activists come out on the streets to ask for a fair trail to Afzal, I keep wondering why is that the case has taken such a political turn. Notwithstanding the fact that we are a very political nation, this is hardly an issue that needs this kind of a treatment. I mean if there is a scope of debate in the case, its not whether Afzal should be hanged. The debate should center on the role played by the investigative agencies in the case. The debate should ask some uncomfortable questions. It should ask how come such a huge attack was planned and executed in the first place? How is that five random men could come to the national capital, conspire with a surrendered militant and have the gall to attack the parliament? What were our agencies doing till 13th December 2001...sleeping on their respective A***S? Who were these men who carried out the attack? If Afzal was the man who had led the agencies in Kashmir to the dreaded Gazi Baba, resulting in his elimination, how come Afzal wasn't 'tagged'? How come no one was watching him? How come he could conspire the parliament attack right under the noses of the Intelligence Agencies? The debate should address the queries of the kith and kin of the policemen who died fighting the terrorists, it should address the queries of the common citizenry of India, it should provide answers to the kith and kin of Afzal as well...his son & his wife. The least we can do as a nation in the 60th year of our independence is ensure justice to those affected, directly and indirectly by the 13/12 attack.
Weirdly enough by virtue of being a Kashmiri I have often been asked whether Afzal should be hanged!!! Initially I would just stare blankly at the person asking the question wondering why is that it was must for me have an opinion on whether Afzal should be hanged. I personally consider it a travesty that a journalist is expected to have an opinion on anything & everything under the sun...sometimes the sun itself. I would wonder if it was one of those loaded loyalty-testing let's-check-what-side-of-the-LOC-he's-on questions. As the issue unfolded like the reels of a Hollywood thriller, I started to brace myself for having an opinion on Afzal's hanging. I am also for a fair trail of Afzal...as also for the fair trail of anyone who is a victim of the circumstances he grows up in. You see Kashmir in the past two decades hasn't really been a place to teach ones kids binding patriotism. Not saying that we need to brace ourselves for Afzals' (God Forbid) just saying that Afzal's five-year-old son, when he grows up doesn't feel like he has been victimized by the circumstances he grew up in.
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