Srinagar, Feb 10: An angry Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today slammed the execution of Afzal Guru and said this would reinforce a sense of alienation and injustice among generation of youth in the Valley.
Omar also said it was a “tragedy” that Guru was not allowed to meet his family before he was hanged and not allowed a “final farewell”. The 43-year-old Parliament attack convict was hanged and buried in Tihar jail premises in Delhi in a secret operation yesterday.
Clearly unhappy with the hanging of Guru, the Chief Minister said there were many questions that needed to be answered.
Omar observed that the long-term implications of Guru's hanging were “far more worrying” as they were related to the new generation of youth in Kashmir “who may not have identified with Maqbool Bhat but will identify with Afzal Guru.” Bhat, a Kashmiri separatist leader, was hanged in Tihar jail in 1984 for the murder of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in the UK.
“Please understand that there is more than one generation of Kashmiris that has come to see themselves as victims, that has come to see themselves as category of people who will not receive justice,” Omar said in TV interviews.
“Whether you like it or not, the execution of Afzal Guru has reinforced that point that there is no justice for them and that to my mind is far more disturbing and worrying than the short-term implications for security front.
How we would be able to correct or address that sense of injustice and alienation is a question I do not have answers,” he added.
Asked about the official position of the ruling National Conference on the hanging, Omar said,” Obviously we would have it rather had not happened.”
Expressing himself against death penalty because “I have no bloodlust”. Omar said as long as the capital punishment exists on the statute there should be no “pick and choose”.
