(When world is debating on the logic of capital punishment, India has hanged two humans in three months. The second and latest is of Afzal Guru. Not for what he was made accused of but for the political mileage, ruling UPA-2 has hanged the man secretly and in a very undemocratic manner.
The ruling party and main opposition along with fundamentalist, right wing groups are playing a dirty game around a death, which, in our belief, is a murder in a democracy. The worse is the response from the main left parties including CPM and CPI.
Here is a open letter to the biggest among them, Prakash Karat, general secretary of CPM, who thinks that ‘Law of the land’ has ‘completed its due course’- Pratirodh Bureau)
To,
Shri Prakash Karat,
General Secretary,
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Dear Comrade,
Afzal Guru was hanged yesterday in utter secrecy, denied in his last moments the right to meet his wife and children one final time. Denied to him also was the ultimate judicial resort, due to every condemned convict after his/her mercy petition has been rejected.
The entire legal proceedings against Afzal were shot through with contradictions, fabrications and travesties of legal procedure. The Supreme Court bench that finally sentenced him to death did so to ‘appease the national conscience’ despite inadequate evidence of his role in the Parliament attack case.
And yet this is what your colleague in the Polit Bureau Sitaram Yechury had to say to the media on this issue, “I think, the law of the land with all its provisions has finally been completed as far as the Afzal Guru case and the attack on the Indian Parliament is concerned. The issue which had been lingering for the past 11 years has finally completed its due course.”
‘Law of the land’ has ‘completed its due course’? Is this the official stand of the CPI(M) on the Afzal Guru case? Or is it just Com. Yechury trying to ‘appease the national conscience’ and joining the UPA in harnessing the ‘Hindu vote’?
Surely you and your colleagues in the Polit Bureau have heard that Afzal was unrepresented from the time of his arrest till he made his alleged \\\’confession? You may have also perhaps heard of the letter that Afzal wrote to the Judge pleading he had no faith in the lawyer appointed for him by the Court, asking to be represented by any from a list of four lawyers he named. The Court records show that two of these lawyers refused to represent him but there is no information whether the other two on the list were even ever asked.
A lawyer, who had never met Afzal, admitted documents in court incriminating him. Or has your Polit Bureau been watching too many telecasts of his \\\’confession\\\’ – considered inadmissible in any court of law – as damning evidence of his guilt?
But never mind. Lack of legal representation for your Party does not seem too major anobstacle in implementing the ‘due course of law’. When elections are looming on the horizon, and your Party’s mass base is dwindling, a little injustice – like the murder of an innocent man- does not matter of course.
If the Congress is fast becoming the B Team of the communal Hindutva brigade should the CPI (M) try to become the C Team? Has your Party learnt nothing from the defeats it has suffered due to similar unprincipled stands it has taken in the past? Are we being completely delusional in expecting a Party named withgrand terms like ‘Communist’ and ‘Marxist’ to take a stand different from that of political formations taking the nation fast forward towards all out Fascism?
Sincerely,
Satya Sivaraman
Manisha Sethi
Panini Anand
Mahtab Alam