Rajeev Kumar, a lawyer practising in India’s Supreme Court, has filed a complaint against Soni Razdan’s "provocative" tweet that the executed Kashmiri terrorist Mohammad Afzal Guru was made a "scapegoat" for the 13 December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament.
“Soni Razdan has been playing with the sentiments of Indian citizens for cheap publicity and it is really condemnable,” Kumar said in his letter to the police seeking her apology.
“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,” Razdan had said in a tweet.
No one is saying he is innocent. But if he was tortured and then ordered by his torturer to do what he did isn’t that what needed to be fully investigated ? Why did no one take his allegations about Devinder Singh seriously. That’s the travesty. https://t.co/PBRhz1gGBg
— Soni Razdan (@Soni_Razdan) January 21, 2020
Razdan’s tweet came in response to a report by the Indian publication The Print that reported on Guru’s letter which alleged that Jammu and Kashmir state police officer Davinder Singh tortured him, extorted money, and asked to do small jobs related to the assault, namely to arrange for a car and a place to stay for the Parliament attacker.
Davinder Singh was recently arrested while caught travelling with two terrorists in South Kashmir. Soon he was suspended from Kashmir Police and the case was handed over to the apex terror probe agency, National Investigative Agency.
Afzal Guru was given capital punishment for his role in the attack on Parliament and executed on 9 February 2013. Five armed terrorists belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had tried to gain access to the Parliament House and gunned down nine security personnel on 13 December 2011. The terrorists were also shot down by security personnel.
The execution of Afzal Guru, however, has remained questionable for several activists and his family as they claim that he did not receive sufficient legal support.
