South Asia Human Rights Journalist Association

New Delhi, February 09, 2013: Indian authorities hanged Muhammad Afzal Guru, a 43-year-old Kashmiri, convicted in the 2001 Indian parliament attack case, today, at 8:00am in Tehar Jail, Delhi.  Afzal Guru was buried inside the jail and the authorities said that he was peaceful and calm when sent to gallows.To avert anticipated reaction in  Kashmir, curfew was imposed across the Valley to prevent people from coming out of their homes to protest the judicial murder of Muhammad Afzal Guru. Afzal Guru wrote his last letter to his wife a few hours before his execution code named Operation Three Star, Tihar Jail officials said Monday.
Speaking to IANS, Indian jail officials at Tihar jail said that Afzal Guru, was told Feb 8 evening that he would be hanged the next morning under an operation code named Operation Three Star.
The preparation to hang Afzal Guru began immediately after the home ministry cleared the file Feb 4.
"When he was told about his execution, he was calm. He expressed his wish to write to his wife. The jail superintendent gave him a pen and paper," an official told IANS under the condition of anonymity.
"He wrote the letter in Urdu, which was posted to his family in Kashmir the same day," the official said.
When IANS contacted Afzal Guru's family in Sopore, they said they are yet to receive the letter. "We have not received his letter. Maybe we will get it later, like the one about his hanging, which we got today," Yaseen Guru, Afzal's cousin, told IANS on phone.
A hangman was called and arrangements were made to hang Afzal Guru near his solitary cell in of Tihar Jail Number 3.
"Very few officers were told about the decision. Three doctors and a maulvi, who performed his last rites, were informed secretly a night before. They were asked to come early Saturday morning," an official said
The motive for giving a secret code name to this operation was to prevent word of the impending hanging from getting around.
Afzal Guru performed his morning prayers and read a few pages of the Holy Quran. On the morning of his execution, he was calm and greeted officials, many whom he addressed by their first names.
He was buried near his cell.
His family has demanded that they be allowed to conduct his last rites while officials said that the government would take a decision in this regard.
Afzal Guru had written a letter to his wife Tabassum hours before he was executed on Saturday morning in the high security Tihar jail.
"He penned a letter to his wife before he was taken to the gallows," a top official of the jail said. He said the letter, posted on Saturday, was written in Urdu but the jail authorities did not know about its contents.
Guru, a medical college dropout and resident of Sopore in north Kashmir, was executed at 8am on Saturday and buried in the prison premises.
Afzal Guru, who used to spend his time in the jail by reading and writing, has left behind many books and hand-written articles. 
The family has asked the jail authorities that all his belongings should be returned to them. "The government will have to take a decision on this issue," the official added.
A jail official had said Guru was woken up at around 5 am on the morning on 9 February and was served tea. He offered Namaz immediately after getting up.
“He was taken to the gallows at 7:30am,” the official said.
“He was dead in a minute, though”, as per the jail norms, the body was kept hanging for a full half hour, said an official who witnessed the hanging. There after Afzal’s body was taken down from the gallows and buried near Jail No. 3, right next to the grave of Kashmiri prominet liberation leader, Mohammad Maqbool Butt who too was hanged in Tihar.
 Afzal used to tell us that he had been unnecessarily dragged into this; the official added. He spoke to The Hindu on condition he not be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the press.
When asked by the jail staff about his last thoughts of his family, on who would take care of them, Afzal said "it was God who looks after each one of us and so would be the case now".
"His strength came from his spirituality. He was a learned man," the official said.
Reporter Vinod K Jose, met Guru twice in Tihar and put together an interview where Guru repeatedly asserts that he is a victim of a larger conspiracy. He questions what the Supreme Court of India calls ‘the conscience of a nation’ and points a finger at the discrepancies he feels exist in the Indian justice system.
Guru also tells Jose that his case is a prototype for the suffering of several hundreds of Kashmiris who have bee tortured in the name of fighting terrorism.
In an especially moving section Guru talks about how he had been repeatedly tortured by Indian forces with false allegations and how, on days, after he was given electric shocks by the dozens, he would return home and not be able to stand straight. He tells the reporter:
Tabassum witnessed both my physical and mental wounds. Many times I returned from the torture camp, unable to stand, all kinds of torture, including electric shock to my penis.
His son, Ghalib, who was born just two years after Guru was apprehended, was his ray of hope in the times of torture, says Guru in the interview. He says about his son:
I want him to grow without fear. I want him to speak against injustice. That I am sure he will be. Who else know the story of injustice better than my wife and son?
He also asks the government of India to stop misleading people about Kashmir .
World human rights watchdogs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in their separate statements expressed disappointment over the way Indian government hanged Afzal Guru. The Amnesty said that Guru was not given a fair trial.
Amnesty International (AI) has condemned the secret execution of Kashmiri youth, Muhammad Afzal Guru, at New Delhi’s Tihar jail.Shashikumar Velath, Programmes Director of Amnesty International India, in a statement issued in London said, “The execution of Guru indicates a disturbing and regressive trend towards executions shrouded in secrecy and the resumption of death penalty use in India.”
“We condemn the execution in the strongest possible terms. This very regrettably puts India in opposition to the global trends towards moving away from the death penalty,” he added.
“Serious questions have been raised about the fairness of Afzal Guru’s trial. He did not receive legal representation of his choice or a lawyer with adequate experience at the trial stage. These concerns were not addressed,” said Shashikumar.
He said that in the past, Indian authorities used to make information about the rejection of mercy petitions and dates of execution available to the public prior to any executions. “The new practice of carrying out executions in secret is highly disturbing,” the AI official said.
The Amnesty said that it was not clear whether Afzal Guru was given the opportunity to seek a judicial review of the decision to reject his mercy petition – a practice that had been followed in other cases. “According to initial reports from Kashmir, Afzal Guru’s family in Kashmir say they were not informed of his imminent execution, in violation of international standards on the use of the death penalty. The body was also not returned to the family for last rites and burial, in violation of international standards,” the Amnesty added.
Meanwhile, South Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly, in a statement said that the hanging of Afzal Guru showed a very worrying trend by the Indian government.
The family members of executed Kashmiri youth, Afzal Guru want his belongings including glasses, clothes and a radio returned to them.
A Tihar jail official, on condition of anonymity, told a news agency that “According to the jail manual, an executed prisoners’ property has to be returned to the family.”
However, Director General (Prisons) Vimla Mehra said: “Afzal Guru’s belongings are in our possession. The government will take the decision whether his body or his things are to be given to the family.”
“Afzal Guru’s wife Tabassum and his family members have already demanded his body so that the last rites could be performed in accordance with Islam,” Afzal Guru’s cousin Yaseen Guru said in a media interview.
“For the family, Afzal Guru’s glasses, radio, which he used to hear in the jail, and clothes have a lot of significance,” he said.
“His glasses are the most precious for Tabassum and their 12-year-old son Ghalib,” said Yaseen Guru.
“Afzal Guru was executed in Tihar Jail on February 9 in 2001 parliament attack case