New Delhi, Dec 13 (ANI): As India observes the 10th anniversary of the 2001 Parliament House terrorist attack on Tuesday, lawmakers of various political outfits rued the delay in carrying out the death penalty sentence awarded to Mohammed Afzal Guru, who was found guilty of the attack.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj said the family members of the martyrs are in despair as to why the guilty has not been punished as yet.
"Another important issue on this day is to execute the person who was involved in planning this attack and the Supreme Court has sentenced him. Therefore, the family members of these martyrs are also in despair because despite being given a death sentence by the Supreme Court, the convict is still out," said Swaraj.
"Therefore on this day, we make sure that such events do not occur again and also that the guilty are thoroughly punished. The nation wants to know why we are stepping back in punishing them," she added.
Another senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani, who paid his respects to the martyrs, said the security personnel had sacrificed their lives to safeguard the temple of democracy in India.
"It is the success that our security achieve by sacrificing their own lives that all the five who had come to enact a very horrid terrorist act, if they had succeeded, even if one would have succeeded in entering the House, it would have been horrible," said Advani.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mohan Singh appeared to be on the same wavelength as the BJP leaders, and said the the greatest tribute to the martyrs would be to carry out the execution.
"The attacks symbolises our nation's weakness. I expect that as ten years have passed, our greatest tribute to the martyrs would be to punish the convicts. As the Supreme Court has sentenced the convicts, it would be best that the sentence is executed as soon as possible," said Singh.
ohammed Afzal Guru, who was held guilty in the case, was awarded the death sentence by a Delhi court on December 18, 2002, after being convicted of conspiracy to attack Parliament on December 13, 2001, waging war against the country and murder.
The Delhi High Court upheld the death sentence on October 29, 2003 and his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court two years later.
Following this, Afzal filed a mercy petition with the President, who forwarded it to Union Home Ministry for its comments.he 2001 Parliament attack, led to the death of a dozen people; five terrorists, six policemen and a civilian. It also caused increased tensions between India and Pakistan resulting in Operation Parakram in 2002. (ANI)
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