We have on one hand Seema Mustafa who has penned one side of the case with the Maqbool Bhat hanging being compared with Afzal Guru's. On the other, we have the evergreen argumentative Indians crying hoarse over the Kashmiri Pandits. The truth, as everyone knows is neither there nor here.
Since when has two wrongs made a right? Hanging Afzal is not getting either the Parliament attack undone or Pandits their home in Kashmir. And therefore, equating one with the other either in comparison or as a winded denouement is folly.
Let us accept that the state has handled this very shabbily. Afzal Guru's complicity cannot be denied. But that this complicity required hanging is extremely doubtful. Nevertheless, since the court, including the Supreme one, has indicated that he was fit for hanging, it should have been implemented with utmost diligence instead of hanging fire for almost 8 years. And now when, the elections are due, it is moot whether extraneous considerations were indeed involved in this hasty hanging.
To suggest closure would be premature. Let us wait and watch how the political establishment takes this forward. The BJP can be expected to trod the beaten chest-thumping right-wing nationalist path, while the Congress will try and take the righteous posturing of, who-else-but-we-did-it jingle. And in all this din, the identity of the attackers will remain shrouded in mystery, except in imaginative minds. And that is a real shame.
