Attack on consulate was to avenge Afzal Guru's hanging

The terror strike on consulate general of India at Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan was aimed at avenging the execution of 2001 Indian Parliament attack conspirator Afzal Guru, the terrorists wrote on the wall of their last refuge just before they were gunned down by soldiers of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

The terrorists scribbled “Afzal Guru Ka Inteqam” (Revenge for Afzal Guru) in Urdu on the wall of a room in the unoccupied building they used as base to launch the attack on the adjacent Consulate General of India.

The ANSF soldiers noticed the words written, apparently with blood, on the walls of the rooms, while searching the half-constructed building after the 25-hour-long operation to neutralise the terrorists ended, according to reports New Delhi received from Afghan government. The wall of another room in the building had written on it “Ek Shaheed, Hajar Fidayeen” (one martyr, thousand suicide attackers). 

Probes by National Directorate of Security of Afghan government confirmed that the terrorists had crossed over to Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Guru, who hailed from Sopore in Jammu and Kashmir, was convicted by a special court in New Delhi for hatching the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament. He was sentenced to death in 2002 and it was confirmed by Delhi High Court in 2003. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2005 and executed at Tihar Jail in Delhi on February 9, 2013. Kabul already shared with New Delhi the findings of the probe by its agencies into the attack on Consulate General of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President M Ashraf Ghani on Monday echoed each other to refer to the attack as an act of cross-border terrorism, thus tacitly pointing fingers at Pakistan.

Afghan government’s agencies are trying to ascertain the extent of the role played by “state and non-state actors” of Pakistan in orchestrating the attack. New Delhi’s envoy to Kabul, Amar Sinha, who visited the consulate on Tuesday, said that both India and Afghanistan were facing “the same enemy”.

A group of heavily-armed terrorists targeted the consulate late in the evening on Sunday.
 It came even as security personnel were engaged in repelling an attack on Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab that too was carried out by terrorists, who had crossed over from Pakistan.