Parliament attack: Court orders hanging of Afzal on Oct 20

New Delhi, Sep 26: Mohammad Afzal, prime accused in the December 2001 Parliament attack case, will be hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail on October 20.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur while issuing the order of execution, to be carried out at 0600 hrs at Tihar Jail here on October 20, said Baramulla resident Afzal be hanged by neck until dead.

Meanwhile, Central Jail (Tihar Jail) spokesman Sunil Kumar Gupta said he had received no official intimation on hanging Mohammad Afzal.

''We have no official intimation on this. Unless we receive the orders we cannot comment on the issue,'' while informing that the mercy petition of the accused was still pending with the government, though sources maintained that the expiry duration of the petition was over.

On the jail preparedness to hang the accused, he said this could be done within no time after a direction to this effect comes.

''Our preparedness depends on the type of orders we get.'' The last time any hanging took place in Tihar was on January 6, 1989, when Satwant Singh and Beant Singh -- accused in the killing of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi -- were executed.

Afzal is one of the accused in the December 13, 2001 parliament attack case who was sentenced to death. The sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court on August 4, 2005, which also changed the capital punishment awarded to Shaukat Hussain Guru to ten years of rigorous imprisonment.

Special POTA court had sentenced Mohammed Afzal to death along with Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani and Shaukat Hussain Guru on December 18, 2002.

The court had also sentenced Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat Hussain Guru, to five years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 for concealing knowledge of the conspiracy.

UNI