An Open letter to the President of India

Respected Honourable President Sir

                                                             As a concerned citizen of this great democratic country, I am compelled to write this letter to you, after seeing the media reports that you are likely to consider the clemency petition submitted by the wife of the dreaded terrorist Mohammed Afzal Guru on his behalf.

As you are very much aware, our parliament was attacked by Pakistan trained terrorists on a December morning in the year 2001 and hundreds of our parliamentarians were saved by our dedicated security personnel, who defended the “heart” of our democracy with bravery & valour.   While defending the parliament, ten officers including a woman sacrificed their precious lives and ultimately defeated the terrorists successfully. In this context, I wish that the law of the land should prevail & ultimately justice should be rendered to those patriots.

The law has taken its own course and finally after three rounds of trials & many hearings, the Supreme Court has held the terrorist Afzal guilty of masterminding the attack and correctly awarded death sentence to him, terming the attack as ‘rarest of rare’ cases.

In the meantime, a section of the political class is trying to politicize the issue with selfish & ulterior motives by unleashing a clemency campaign and by questioning even the credibility of judiciary, causing doubts on it, which amounts to ‘contempt’ of court. Apart from the politicians, there is also a section of legal luminaries, human rights activists, intellectuals & NGOs supporting the clemency call. All these people put forth an argument that, the hanging of Afzal in the month of Ramzan would be a hindrance to the so-called peace process and that it may further alienate the ‘Kashmiris’ leading to an eruption of large scale violence in the valley. This argument is ridiculous & farce, but the actual reason behind the argument is the game of politics, trying to emotionally blackmail the already weakened government. The shocking point is that the Congress party, which is leading the UPA government, is non-committal and the Left front, which is the outside supporter to the government is recommending for reduction of the sentence to life imprisonment. It is quite obvious that all these parties are playing vote bank politics. Moreover, these parties do not represent the entire country and there is also the main opposition party BJP, representing a major section of the people, which supports the verdict of the Supreme Court. In addition to that, in all the surveys conducted by the media houses, more than 90% of the general public has welcomed the verdict.

The law of the land is common for all and all are equal in the eyes of law. The law doesn’t discriminate between caste, creed or colour. So, the argument that the convict is a ‘Kashmiri’ or a ‘Muslim’ is baseless. Let the politicians play politics! Let the activists & intellectuals continue their senseless campaign! Let the media indulge in sensationalization! But, we, the people of this great country value the sacrifice of the security personnel! We respect the law of this land & the verdict of the judiciary. We want the verdict to be honoured and the sacrifice to be recognized & rewarded.

It is reported that the families of the security personnel, who have lost their lives in defending the parliament, have submitted a petition requesting you to uphold the verdict of the Supreme Court. Now since you are holding two petitions, the whole country is looking up to you for the decision of a life time, which is going to be marked in the history of our nation.

Respected Sir, We love you as a ‘teacher’! We admire you as a ‘scientist’! We respect you as the ‘Supreme Commander’ of the armed forces; we revere you as the Honourable President of India. We have the trust & confidence that you would render justice & uphold the law of the land. Let this ‘hanging’ be a lesson to the perpetrators & supporters of terror.

So, Sir, we hereby request you to kindly honour the petition submitted by the family of the security personnel and reject the clemency petition summarily, so that, the brave souls of the departed officers would rest in peace.

Thanking You Sir,

Yours Sincerely,

B.R.Haran,

(True citizen of India)

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