Afzal Guru Hanged: Family cries foul, demands his body back

Srinagar, Feb 9:

, the main accused in the

case of December 13, 2001 was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail on Saturday, Feb 9. He was a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist.

Earlier, Union home secretary RK Singh confirmed the hanging of Guru. Singh said that Guru was hanged at 8 am on Saturday morning in Delhi's Tihar Jail. "He was hanged at 8 o' clock this morning. The President rejected his petition on February 3."

Singh added Guru's family back in Kashmir were informed about his execution.

"They (Tihar jail authorities) intimated the family through Speed Post, registered post and the DG (director general of Jammu and Kashmir Police) has been told to check with the family whether they got it or not," Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

However, family denied getting any prior information about the execution.

"We had no idea, we were woken up by people, got to know when things were being debated and posted on facebook," Yaseen Guru, cousin of Guru, told Hindustan Times.

"We have gotten no letter, no family member has been informed as opposed to what the government is claiming," he added.

"His wife had appealed for mercy, she should have been informed that the plea has been rejected. We got to know about that from the national television in the morning," he added.

Now, Guru's family has demanded that the government hand over his body to them for burial.

''We want the body of my father... I want to see his face,'' Afzal Guru's 14 year old son Ghalib told The Indian Express. ''We want to bury him here.''

"We had called the local police station, requesting them to let us go to Guru's ancestral home Doabgah. The police declined,'' Ghulam Mohammad Buhroo, paternal grandfather of Ghalib.

Buhroo said that Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde is lying when he says that the government had informed the family.

''We met him (Guru) at Tihar Jail on Raksha Bandan. My wife and Ghalib were accompanying me. If the government would have informed us, we would have atleast gone and met him one last time,'' Buhru said. ''The government is lying. They did not tell us anything.''

Buhroo said that now that the government has hanged him (Afzal), it is our right to perform his funeral in accordance with our religion.

''How can they bury him inside Tihar jail? He has a family. He has a son, wife and brother. They must hand over the body to us as soon as possible,'' Buhroo said.

The Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist has been buried inside the Tihar jail itself, according to a prison official.

OneIndia News