'Guru's execution symbolises India's defeat in Kashmir'

, Feb 21: Chairperson of Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) Prof Hameeda Nayeem on Wednesday said that India had "redefined judicial norms" to execute Mohammad

for the latter could not be proved to be directly involved in the

case.

According to a report published in the Kashmir Observer on Thursday, Prof Nayeem said Guru was executed in a haste to please the jingoist and majoritarian conscience of the country and in the process, the universal principles of justice and fair play were sacrificed. Guru was 22nd on the list of the country's death row inmates but was executed in Delhi's Tihar jail on the early morning of February 8. Even his family came to know about the execution two days after it took place. Guru was buried inside the jail premises near where Maqbool Bhatt, another Kashmiri who was hanged in 1984, was buried.

The scholar said she was too shocked by the execution which was carried out under great secrecy but could gather words only after seeing the calm faces of his family members.

Prof Nayeem said Guru was executed even after judicial errors, cooked-up evidence and executive chicanery had failed to prove that the man was directly involved in the attack on the parliament. Describing the entire episode as a dirty affair, Prof Nayeem asked whether the government used Guru to outscore the Opposition in terms of electoral gains. "Only by hanging a Kashmiri could the government satisfy the ‘conscience' in mainland India and face no fierce opposition in the country," the report quoted her as saying.

She also wondered whether the execution was meant to inflict a blow to the collective conscience of the Kashmiris by making them understand that their resistance to India's domination would never be taken note of but would only be suppressed brutally. "...the government is hell-bent on denying justice to Kashmiris, even though it will have to brazenly redefine justice in terms of the satisfaction of the jingoistic majority's lust for Kashmiri blood," the report quoted the professor's words.

But according to Prof Nayeem, Guru's execution alienated the Kashmiris further and would boost the resistance movement. She said the Kashmiris' determined movement to free themselves from India's control symbolized a defeat of the Indian state and her militarization in the state.

Describing a psychological defeat to be more painful than a physical blow, the KCSDS chairperson said the decision not to return Guru's body was a blunder for it would keep the public memory ignited for days to come.

She also said if Guru was hanged for allegedly attacking the temple of democracy, then several Indians should also be made to face similar consequences for violating the democratic rights of the Kashmiris, including the rights to self-determination.

OneIndia News