NEW DELHI, Sept 27: Kashmiri convict Mohammad Afzal, sentenced to death for his role in the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001, has said that he will approach President APJ Abdul Kalam with a reprieve petition, Indian news channels reported on Wednesday.
Clashes broke out in Sirnagar between the police and protesters who took to the streets protesting Tuesday’s death warrant issued by a Delhi court.
Afzal was convicted by a special anti-terror court in Delhi in 2002 for helping attackers carry out the strike on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Afzal has denied the charges and his wife says he was framed.
His appeal against the death sentence was subsequently turned down by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
Originally, three people Afzal, his cousin Shaukat Hussein and a reader in Delhi University Prof S.A.R. Geelani had been given the death sentence for their roles in the Parliament attack.
While the High Court acquitted Geelani, the Supreme Court reduced the death sentence against Shaukat to 10-year jail term.
Human rights groups say Afzal did not get a proper defence in court. He did not have a lawyer until the charge-sheet was filed several months after his arrest. Moreover, it was a court appointed lawyer who represented him.
“Of course there was a great fear amongst lawyers and they were not approaching the accused for taking up their cases,” said Nitya Ramakrishnan, legal counsel for one of the accused.
Afzal had uptil now not asked for a presidential reprieve, but on Wednesday he said that he claimed that he was innocent and wanted the president to intervene.
