'No time limit on Afzal's mercy petition'

New Delhi, Aug 29: The mercy petition filed by Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal was being processed in accordance with the prescribed procedure for submission to the President, the government today informed Rajya Sabha. Minister of State for Home Radhika Selvi told Mr Bal Apte, Dr K Malaisamy and Gopal Vyas, in a written reply, that under Article 72 of the Constitution, there was no time limitation as to when the power conferred might be exercised.

The Supreme Court had convicted Afzal for his role in the December 13, 2001 Parliament attack and awarded death sentence to him.

To a question by Mr Pyarelal Khandelwal, the other Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said that the terrorists' CD claiming to reveal plans for Jehad in India was received in June 2007 by a local news agency in Jammu and Kashmir but the inquiries so far had not revealed that the CD was linked to any particular outfit. The Government firmly remained committed to countering challenge posed by the terrorist organisations, he asserted.

Answering Mr O T Lepcha, the minister said there were 205 bomb blast incidents in JK, the North-East and naxal-affected states resulting in 195 security men and civilians losing their lives.

Replying to another question, he said the number of infiltration attempts during 2007 was 351 as compared to 372 in 2006 and 363 in 2005. The government had adopted a multi-pronged approach to contain cross border infiltration in the state including strengthening border management and multi-tiered and multi-modal deployment along the International Border and LOC, near the ever changing infiltration routes. The government had decided to shift a stretch of 38.015 km of fencing close to international border in the state to enable the farmers to cultivate their land freely, Mr Jaiswal noted.

UNI