Afia Ambreen
The seventh death anniversary of Mohammad Afzal Guru falls on Sunday as he was secretly hanged and buried inside Tihar jail on this day in 2013. Afzal Guru, who was hailing from Doabgah Sopore in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, was hanged on 9 February 2013 after he was convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack. His body was buried secretly within the premises of Delhi’s Tihar Jail and the mortal remains were never returned to his family. Tabassum Guru, wife of Afzal Guru said they have been demanding his mortal remains since the day he was hanged. The execution had sparked criticism and raised many questions from across the world over the fair trial by the Indian authorities. Guru was hanged after his final clemency plea was rejected.
He had been on death row since 2002. Afzal Guru, a former fruit merchant, was one of two men sentenced to death for helping to plan the attack, although the sentence of Shaukat Hussain was later reduced on appeal to 10 years in jail. Guru had always denied plotting the attack, which left 14 dead, including five militants. India blamed the attack on the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group, which it alleged was backed by Pakistan. Pakistan denied involvement in the attack but relations between the two countries nosedived as their armies massed about a million troops along the border. Security had been stepped up across India and an indefinite curfew is in place in Indian held Kashmir, where news of the execution sparked protests. Until recently, executions were rarely carried out in India. But Guru’s hanging was the second in the three months after Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November in a prison in the western city of Pune.
In fact, the very tragedy of Kashmiris had started after 1947 when they were denied their genuine right of self-determination. They organized themselves against the injustices of India and launched a war of liberation which New Delhi tried to crush through various forms of brutalities. Since 1947, in order to maintain its illegal control, India has continued its repressive regime in the Indian-Held Kashmir through various machinations. However, various forms of state terrorism have been part of a deliberate campaign by the Indian army and paramilitary forces against Muslim Kashmiris, especially since 1989. It has been manifested in brutal tactics like crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, massacre, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, torture, disappearances, rape, breaking the legs, molestation of Muslim women and killing of persons through fake encounter. While, Indian forces have employed various draconian laws like the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act in killing the Kashmiri people, and for the arbitrarily arrest of any individual for an indefinite period. Besides Human Rights Watch, in its various reports, Amnesty International has also pointed out grave human rights violations in the Indian controlled Kashmir, indicating, “The Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces.”
The way people of occupied Kashmir especially youth were offering priceless sacrifices in the ongoing freedom struggle deserved all applauses. During the past 70 years of struggle, the Kashmiris braved all odds and didn’t surrender despite facing the worst form of Indian state terrorism. Kashmiri people should remain steadfast to take the liberation struggle to its logical conclusion. Moreover, the international community should wake up and take note of the pain inflicted on the innocent Kashmiris and build pressure on New Delhi to honour the aspirations of Kashmiris.
Moreover, Indian unilateral and illegal actions on 5th August 2019 had led to a humanitarian crisis in IOK due to the siege laid by 900,000 fully armed Indian forces on 8 million defenceless and voiceless Kashmiris. Genocide Watch has issued Genocide Alert for Kashmir. Since 5th August, Kashmiris have remained cut off from the outside world leading to civilian deaths due to shortages of food and medicines. Crimes against humanity including mass killings, mass graves, mass rapes, mass blinding in occupied Kashmir and actions taken in the aftermath of 5th August 2019 contravene all relevant international laws and conventions on human rights. India, under Modi’s fascist philosophy, is beating the war drums while Pakistan is showing patience. Pakistan and Kashmiris want a peaceful and lasting solution of the Kashmir dispute as per the United Nations resolutions, global agreements and Indian commitments. However, Indian war-mongering intentions were putting the security and peace of the whole south Asia in jeopardy and it was the collective responsibility of the international community to intervene in this situation.
Nonetheless, the martyrdom of Muhammad Afzal Guru infused a new spirit into the movement of Jammu Kashmir. His martyrdom anniversary provides an opportunity to ponder over the fact that various countries of the world got independence by sacrificing their precious lives. On this vary day, the best way to pay homage to the hero of Kashmir’s struggle, Muhammad Afzal Guru is that all the Kashmiris must renew their pledge to take the war of liberation to its logical end.
