Former actress Soni Razdan, who is the wife of Mahesh Bhatt and mother of actress Alia Bhatt, today took to Twitter to claim that the SC’s judgement parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was wrong and Guru was made a ‘scapegoat’.
Quoting an article published on ‘The Print’ about a possible connection between recently arrested DSP Davinder Singh and parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru, Razdan asserted that it was “travesty of justice” when an “innocent man” like Afzal Guru was hanged. Furthermore, Razdan stated that Guru was made the ‘scapegoat’ and demanded that a solid enquiry into the matter is needed.
This is a travesty of justice. Who is going to bring back a man from the dead if he is innocent. This is why the death penalty is not to be used lightly. And this is why there also needs to be a solid enquiry into why Afzal Guru was made the scapegoat https://t.co/UUVV2Z9UGU
— Soni Razdan (@Soni_Razdan) January 21, 2020
The article cited by Razdan mentions a letter allegedly written by Afzal Guru wherein he alleges that Davinder Singh and other Jammu and Kashmir officials introduced him to one of the men who attacked the Parliament and asked him to arrange for logistics.
In another tweet, Razdan shared a video and wrote that there should also be an enquiry as to how people like Afzal are ‘tortured and forced to carry out terrorist activities’ for criminals and then get the death penalty.
In the mentioned letter, Afzal also reportedly claimed that Singh and other officers from the J&K police not only tortured him and extorted money, but also acquainted him to one of the men who later attacked Parliament. Afzal stated that it was Singh who asked him to arrange for a car and a place to stay for the assailant.
Razdan later added that she is not making claims that Guru was innocent, but merely saying that his claims should have been investigated and it is a travesty that nobody took his allegations about the now arrested cop Davinder Singh seriously.
Last weekend, Davinder Singh was arrested along with Naveed Babu, a district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, a new recruit Atif and an advocate Irfan Mir. The four were caught with arms and ammunition while they were travelling in a car near Qazigund on the national highway in south Kashmir. Following Singh’s arrest with the terrorists, it was widely speculated that Singh had an illicit connection with the notorious Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and was involved in enabling and helping terrorists in the valley. The NIA has now been entrusted with the responsibility of probing the charges levelled against Singh.
With questions being raised over Singh’s integrity, Razdan went ahead and exonerated Afzal Guru of his crimes, considering everything written in the letter by a convicted terrorist, as gospel truth. Notably, Afzal was awarded the death sentence for his role in the Parliament attacks and his punishment was upheld by multiple courts.
The Supreme Court had upheld Guru’s death penalty after appeals. The court had noted that there was clinching evidence against Afzal Guru regarding his nexus with the terrorists who carried out the “terrorist act of most diabolical nature”. “All evidence unerringly point to Afzal Guru, a key conspirator, who played an active role”, the Bench had said observing that by no standards his act could be termed innocuous.
