Daily News & Analysis
   
 
NEW DELHI: A Delhi Court on Tuesday ordered that Jaish-e-Mohammed militant Mohd Afzal, sentenced to death in the December 13, 2001 Parliament attack case, be hanged on October 20.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur signed the death warrant directing the Tihar Central Jail authorities here to make arrangements for hanging Afzal at 6 am on October  20. The Supreme Court had on August 4 last year upheld the Delhi High Court judgment confirming the death sentence awarded to Afzal by the trial court.

On filing a mercy petition with the President, the last authority of appeal, Afzal’s lawyer Colin Gonsalves said, “I am sure it was filed by the accused’s family, but I am not sure if it has been dismissed.”

Apart from Afzal, there were three accused in the case, Shaukat Hussain, Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat Hussain, and SAR Geelani, a lecturer in Delhi University. The apex court had acquitted Geelani and Afsan Guru from all charges and had reduced the death sentence awarded to Shaukat Hussain to 10 years’ imprisonment.

However, it upheld the judgment of the high court in sentencing Afzal to death for actively participating in the conspiracy to attack Parliament and waging war against the state.  In its judgment the apex court characterised Afzal as a “menace to the society,”  whose “life should become extinct” to satisfy “the collective conscience of the society.”

The Apex Court had said that there was clinching evidence against Afzal regarding his nexus with the slain terrorists who had carried out the attack. The trial court had on Dec 18, 2002 awarded death penalty to Afzal, Shaukat, and Geelani and five years’ imprisonment to Afsan Guru.

The Delhi High Court had on Oct 29, 2003 upheld the death penalty to Afzal and Shaukat but had acquitted both Geelani and Afsan Guru.