May 22, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

NEW DELHI, May 21: Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patilhas has put it bluntly. He was quoted by Press Trust of India on Wednesday as wondering how people who were seeking clemency for Indian convict Sarabjit Singh facing death sentence in Pakistan could demand the immediate hanging of Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri prisoner condemned to die for 2001 attack on parliament.

“You want Afzal Guru to be hanged. (At the same time) you are saying that don’t hang a person who has gone to Pakistan (Singh),” Mr Patil told reporters in Latur, his parliamentary constituency on Tuesday.

“These people want others to be hanged. What are you doing? You are saying don’t hang that person (Singh) and you say hang this person (Guru) here,” Mr Patil said. PTI quote him as saying that the law would take its course, which could mean anything.

Guru was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court for being involved in the criminal conspiracy to attack Parliament on Dec 13, 2001. His clemency plea is pending with the government.

PTI said the statement by Mr Patil was likely to start a row with main the opposition BJP already slamming the minister for his “irresponsible” comments.

“The government which has been dithering on the execution of Afzal Guru is actually supporting and playing vote bank politics by giving such absurd reasons,” BJP spokesperson Javadekar said.

The “ill-informed Union home minister of the country does not even know that while Sarabjit Singh was a case of mistaken identity, Guru’s role and involvement in Parliament attack is proven,” he said.

Meanwhile PTI, reporting from Islamabad, said Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee took up Sarabjit’s issue with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Mr Mukherjee, who had earlier made an appeal for clemency for Sarabjit on “humanitarian grounds”, reiterated the plea at his meeting with Mr Qureshi, PTI said.

Sarabjit and his family have been maintaining that his was a case of mistaken identity. Sarabjit’s case has been taken up by Pakistani HR activist Ansar Burney, who visited the prisoner’s family in Punjab last month.