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What does the new government say about Afzal Guru?

June 12, 2009 13:50 IST

Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru cannot be hanged till other mercy petitions pending before his are disposed of, feels the government.

"The question is that it is not Afzal or anybody. You know you cannot pick and choose and hang people. There is justice," Law Minister M Veerappa Moily told NDTV.

He was replying to a question on Guru, who is among 28 convicts whose mercy petitions are pending before the President.

Noting that there were other terrorists in the death row, Moily claimed, "Terrorist who killed Indira Gandhi is still waiting. He has to be hanged. There is one more terrorist who is involved in terrorism. He is waiting. I am not defending anyone but I am for evolving a system" for mercy petitions, he said.

The minister also said that there were many people waiting in the death row in Pakistan, who included Indians.
"And do you want all of them to be hanged immediately?" he asked.

 

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