ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan said on Wednesday he had made a rare appeal to the Indian-held Kashmir government to help save the life of a compatriot, Afzal Guru, sentenced to death on the disputed charge of a role in a deadly attack on parliament in New Delhi.
Pakistani authorities and human rights groups in both Pakistan and India have urged New Delhi to spare the life of activist Guru, who denies the charge about the 2001 attack.
The Azad Kashmir premier’s appeal, disclosed during an interview with Dawn, will be the first official approach to pro-Indian leadership in the Indian-held part of the disputed state where the anti-India All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has already launched a protest campaign against the sentence.
The Indian Supreme Court has approved the sentence against Mr Guru who can now be saved only by a pardon by the Indian president.
Asked if he had approached the Indian-held Kashmir government, which is not recognised by Pakistani or Azad Kashmir authorities as a genuine administration, Sardar Attique said: “I have sent a message to them as well.” But he did not elaborate how.
Urging the Indian government to refrain from what he called targeted killings and hanging of Kashmiri activists, he said: “I ask the government in occupied Kashmir that while the APHC is already trying (to save Mr Guru’s life), they should also kindly play a role in this.”
He said while other Kashmiris were making sacrifices for the liberation of their homeland, the state’s political figures swearing allegiance to India could not be ignored in seeking a settlement of the problem. “We can differ with their mode of elections but as Kashmiris (Chief Minister) Ghulam Nabi Azad, (ex-chief minister) Mufti Mohammad Saeed, (one-time Sadr-e-Riasat) Dr Karan Singh, (party leader) Mahbooba Mufti, and (National Conference chief) Farooq Abdullah cannot be excluded,” he said.
But Sardar Attique regretted there had been no response to an invitation he extended in his recent oath-taking speech to “elected people” in the Indian-held Kashmir to visit Azad Kashmir. “It was a very big message, but they have not reciprocated.”
Senator S. M. Zafar, chairman of the Functional Committee on Human Rights in the upper house, on Wednesday urged the Indian president to remit the sentence, which he said had followed a trial held in a charged atmosphere while the courts also found that police had fabricated some evidence against Mr Guru.
“In these circumstances, awarding the death sentence ‘to satisfy the collective conscience of the Indian society’ would set a bad precedent and would be contrary to the Universal Trend on Human Rights ... which in general abhors awarding death sentences,” he said in a statement.
