India imposes curfew in Kashmir after execution

9 February AFP

Security forces imposed a curfew Saturday in parts of Indian-administered Kashmir while the centre of the main city Srinagar was sealed off by police after the execution of a separatist.

Residents in rural areas said police used loud hailers to order them to stay indoors from daybreak as it emerged that Mohammed Afzal Guru, a member of an Islamist group fighting Indian rule in the divided region, was to be hanged.

Although there was no formal curfew order in Srinagar, police hastily erected barricades across main entry roads and in the city centre in a bid to prevent any possible demonstrations against the execution.

Three police helicopters could also be seen hovering overhead in Srinagar, the main city in what is India's only Muslim majority state. Authorities at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar meanwhile issued a statement announcing that examinations due to take place on Saturday had been cancelled.

Guru was executed at a jail near Delhi after being found guilty of conspiring with and sheltering militants who attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001, an incident that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

India alleged the militants behind the parliament attack were supported by Pakistani intelligence, leading the nuclear-armed rivals to deploy an estimated one million troops to their borders for eight months. A former chief minister of Kashmir once warned that executing him would lead the country to “go up in flames” because of a backlash from rebels in Indian Kashmir.

Mohammed Afzal Guru, a former fruit seller, was hanged at Tihar Jail at around 7:30am (0200 GMT), becoming only the second person to be hanged in India in nearly a decade, officials said.

Guru was found guilty of conspiring with and sheltering the militants who attacked the parliament in December 2001, an incident that brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

He was also held guilty of being a member of the banned Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which fights against Indian rule in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, where a separatist conflict has claimed up to 100,000 lives.

Five armed rebels stormed India's parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, killing eight police officers and a gardener before they were shot dead by security forces. A journalist wounded in the attack died months later.

Sources in the intelligence wing of the Indian army said they had been instructed to prepare for a possible backlash in Kashmir after Guru's execution. India alleged the militants behind the parliament attack were supported by Pakistani intelligence, leading the nuclear-armed rivals to deploy an estimated one million troops to their borders for eight months.

Guru's conviction, which has been delayed on several occasions, was both highly political and hotly contested. He described his imprisonment as a “gross miscarriage of justice” in his mercy appeal to the president.

A group of activists including lawyers have campaigned for him, saying his trial had major problems, including fabricated evidence presented by the police and the lack of proper legal representation.

Protesters against his “unfair” conviction in Muslim-majority Kashmir have held demonstrations demanding his release, while right-wing Hindu activists have long demanded his execution to send a message to other potential attackers.

The widows of the police officers killed in the attack handed back their posthumous gallantry medals and said they would only take them back once Guru was sent to the gallows.

Guru was initially convicted along with Shaukat Hussain, a former student at Delhi University and S.A.R. Geelani, a New Delhi college teacher, who were also handed the death sentence, reserved for the “rarest of rare” cases in India.

Their crimes were described as “horrendous, revolting and dastardly” by the Indian judge who tried them.

Guru's wife, Afsan Guru, who was found guilty of not disclosing information to police, was also sentenced to five years in prison but had her conviction overturned on appeal.

Geelani was also freed on appeal after two-years of imprisonment, adding to the doubts about the initial trial.

Executions are only carried out for extremely rare cases in India and Guru's would be only the second since 2004.

The sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistani-born Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was executed on November 21 last year.