Afzal Guru's last moments left jail officials emotional

, Feb 11: Even as rightist camps celebrated the execution of

, the man convicted of masterminding terror attacks on India's parliament in December 2001, a gloomy mood prevailed in Tihar jail where the man was hanged early on Saturday morning. A

published in

said on Monday.

Jail sources said Afzal was an extremely well-behaved person and even as he inched towards the gallows, he greeted jail employees he knew by their first names. His only request to the authorities was not to cause him pain during the execution. The executioner, who reportedly became emotional at the moment, assured him that it would be a smooth affair and he kept his words.

It was also known that Afzal was informed about his execution only on the morning of D-Day and not the previous evening. The man just had a cup of tea and later took bath and changed into the whites and offered namaz.

"Al vida," Guru bid goodbye to his executioner and was dead in a minute after the latter pulled the lever. The body was kept hanging for half-an-hour, according to the official witness and later buried with full religious rites near Jail No. 3, right next to the grave of Kashmiri separatist leader Maqbool Butt. The latter was hanged in the same jail on February 11, 1984.

An official in the jail, however, refused to brush the two in the same brush. He said while Butt was a separatist, Guru never talked about secession of Kashmir and often said that he was unnecessarily dragged into the issue. The jail authorities were impressed with Guru's composed conduct even in the dying moments. They said they had never seen any other man behaving in such calm manner even after learning about his impending death.

It was also told that Guru, unlike many others who made political or religious cries before being taken to the gallows, walked to the platform in a normal way and as told earlier, wishing people around him. Just hours before his death, Guru also penned some thoughts on a paper and signed it.

When officials asked him about his family's future, Guru said God would take care of them.

Guru, the official said, was a learned man and well-versed in Islam as well as Hinduism.

"Some time ago he had read all the four Vedas. How many Hindus have actually done that? You normally rejoice at the end of evil, [but] when a pious soul goes away, it leaves behind a tinge of sorrow," the report quoted the official saying.

OneIndia News