Will await his remains till last breath: Afzal’s wife
Says Kashmiri people want Parliament attack convict to have decent burial
Tabassum Guru, the wife of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru, said on Saturday that she would wait for his mortal remains till her last breath.
She lamented that the successive governments have ignored her and her only child Ghalib’s repeated pleas that their right to give a “decent burial” to the mortal remains of Guru be acknowledged and conceded too “on moral and humanitarian grounds”
“Six years have lapsed. My son and I have been pleading before New Delhi that the mortal remains of my husband may be returned to us so that we can give them a decent Islamic burial here at his native place. The people of Kashmir also want it,” she said over the phone from her home in Seer Jagir area of Doabgah suburb of the north- western town of Sopore.
Guru was after the hanging buried within the premises of Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 9, 2013.
Ms Tabassum said, “I shall wait for Afzal Sahib’s jasad- e- khaki ( mortal remains) till my last breath. I want to see him being given a decent burial as per the Islamic law and our own traditions. Can you deny me this right? No!”
Meanwhile, a shutdown called by an alliance of key separatist leaders brought life to a standstill across Kashmir Valley on Guru’s sixth death anniversary on Saturday. Shops and other businesses remained closed across the Muslim- majority Valley whereas only private vehicles and auto- rickshaws could be seen plying on select roads except in those areas where security restrictions were in force.
Earlier, the authorities had placed key separatist leaders under house arrest or the police took them in preventive custody. Security forces enforced a lockdown in some parts of summer capital Srinagar and in the north- western town of Sopore to hold back protests. Guru’s brother Muhammad Yasin Guru said that because of the restrictions in and around Doabgah even their relatives could not visit the family on his death anniversary. “You know, there is only one approach road to our area. It had been blocked by government forces,” he said.