Uproar in J&K Assembly over Afzal Guru clemency

Uproarious scenes were witnessed in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Wednesday, over a resolution seeking clemency for Parliament attack death row convict Afzal Guru.

A resolution seeking clemency for Guru, sentenced to death for his role the December 2001 attack on Parliament, was submitted by Engineer Rashid, an independent MLA in the 87-member state Legislative Assembly.

This morning, as soon as the House convened, Opposition MLAs, primarily from the Jammu region, stormed into the Well of the House demanding that the resolution should not be tabled and taken up for discussion.

Opposition MLAs hold view that the Assembly has no power to discuss the verdict by the apex court of the country.

The Speaker tried to assuage their concerns but the Opposition did not want to listen to him and continued to shout slogans. Following the pandemonium, the House was adjourned for 30 minutes.

State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had tweeted last month stating that if the J&K Assembly had passed a resolution seeking clemency, similar to the one passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly seeking clemency for Rajiv Gandhi's killers, the response would not have been muted.

Engineer Rashid, however, maintained that Omar's tweet had nothing to do with his decision to file the resolution.

The opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) has already said its 21 MLAs would vote in favour of the resolution and BJP is opposed to it.

But ruling National Conference and Congress are in a fix over the issue. The NC is finding it difficult to balance the concerns of its local constituency and its position as a member of the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre.

A senior party leader was quoted as saying: "If the party votes for clemency that would weigh heavily on its ruling allies in the Congress at the national level and also in the Jammu region."

"If the NC stays away from vote that would provide a lethal handle to our political adversaries, it is like Shakespeare's Hamlet -- to be or not to be!"

The statements of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik will also increase the pressure on NC as the separatists have warned that hanging Guru could lead to disastrous consequences.

The Congress, on the other hand, cannot afford to vote in favour of clemency. If it votes against the resolution, and the NC does vote in favour of the resolution, the Congress would find it difficult to shield itself from its political fallout.