'No one must nurture a thought that it is not fair and just'

There is no place for jubilation or glee in a mature democracy on the culmination of a procedure envisaged by law.

On August 4, 2005, when Justices P V Reddy and P P Naolekar pronounced their judgement on the appeals filed by Shaukat Hussain, Afzal Guru, Afsan Guru and Syed A R Gilani, they never thought that it would take nearly eight years for their orders to be carried out. The first four stages of the judicial process were completed in about four-and-a-half years. The final stage in the case of death penalties is the mercy petition which the convicted accused can file before the President of India. In the present instance, the petition remained pending till 2013.

The first stage was the Police investigations into the attack on the Parliament of India by five armed men, all of  whom, it was established later, were Pakistani nationals. The attack left nine persons dead - eight security personnel and a gardener - and 16 other Indian citizens seriously injured. The terrorists were armed with automatic weapons, hand grenades and carried bombs fitted with detonators ready to be set off. The quantity of explosives in the bombs was enough to reduce a major part of the grand circular edifice of the Parliament House to a mass of stone and mortar and kill all those inside the building.

Both Houses of Parliament were in session when the attack took place. Fortuitously, the carcade of the Vice President was in readiness, awaiting his arrival near the main porch.
The white Ambassador with  the red beacon in which the terrorists had managed to enter Parliament House with forged identity cards struck a vehicle of the Vice President’s escort, alerting the Police officers on duty and they killed all the five terrorists in the 30 minutes long fierce gun battle which ensued.

They paid a heavy price ,sacrificed their lives but ensured that not a single Parliamentarian was harmed in any way.  It is to the credit of the Delhi Police that they completed the investigations within a record time of 20 days and immediately filed the charge sheet in the designated court against four accused. The trial in the Court of Sessions was completed in six months. Eighty prosecution and ten defence  witnesses were examined and more than 330 exhibits were presented to the court. A division bench of the Delhi High Court confirmed the conviction of three of the accused on  October 29, 2003.                                                                                                   

The Supreme Court judgement has referred to, cited and discussed over 50 rulings of Indian courts, the Privy Council, English, American and other courts. The role of conspirators, applicability of POTA, the admissibility of confessions made by Shaukat and Afzal have been examined minutely. Each and every bit of evidence - whether the dates, timings, duration of the conversations on the mobile phones recovered from the accused and the deceased terrorists or evidence of the flats taken on rent  by Afzal and Shaukat in Delhi in which the five terrorists resided before the attack, were examined by the Judges.

Bushels of evidence

The recovery of explosives, detonators from the two flats was clinching proof of the deliberate and active role of these two convicts. The purchase of the white Ambassador car and a motorcycle by the duo, the identification of Afzal by the landlords, shopkeepers, car and motorcycle dealers  showed beyond doubt the depth of involvement in the planning and execution process of the plan to kill members of the Government and political leaders of the country while they were in Parliament House.

This evidence by itself would be sufficient for any court to establish the involvement of Afzal and Shaukat. Additional proof was provided by the Kashmir Police, who arrested Shaukat and Afzal in Srinagar where they had run away after the attack on Parliament. A laptop, Rs 10 lakh in cash and other sundry items were recovered from them by the Srinagar Police.

The abundance and bushels of evidence established beyond doubt how the five Pakistani terrorists were conducted to Delhi, sheltered and given the means and wherewithal to carry out the attack on the Parliament of India. The accused were represented by very eminent senior counsels Ram Jethmalani, Shanti Bhushan and Sushil Kumar in the Supreme Court.

The clamour and cacophony which  has arisen in the wake of the hanging of Afzal is very largely due to the inordinate delay in the decision on the mercy petition filed in the year 2006. The inordinate delay allowed new overtones and dimensions to intrude and emerge. It no longer remained a legal process as it should have been. There should be no place for jubilation or glee in a mature democracy on the culmination of a procedure envisaged by the law of the land.

The nation should be grateful to those who died performing their duty in protecting Parliament. The Policemen, technicians and experts who collected the evidence and purveyed it. The prosecutors, court officials and certainly the citizens who volunteered information and gave their testimony in court - all need to be thanked.  All countrymen and women must work together to strengthen our legal system so that no one can nourish a thought that it is not fair and just.

(The writer is former Commissioner of Police, Delhi and former Director, Intelligence Bureau.)