Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah yesterday said he was told about Afzal Guru’s imminent hanging the previous evening and told “to take steps to control the situation” in
the state.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde had on Friday evening told the state government about the decision to hang the parliament attack convict, the chief minister told the media, and appealed
for calm.
Afzal Guru was hanged yesterday at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
“We were informed to take steps to control the situation in (Jammu and Kashmir),”
Abdullah said.
“In contrast to (JKLF chairman) Maqbool Bhat, there was no case against Afzal Guru in the state and as such the chief minister or the government did not have to sign his ... death warrant,” Abdullah said.
Bhat was hanged in 1984 in the Tihar Jail.
“Yesterday (Friday) at around 8pm, Union Home Minister informed me that all legal formalities had been completed and it had been decided that Afzal Guru would be hanged at 8am tomorrow),” Abdullah said.
He said the state government had conveyed to the central government its apprehensions about the possible fallout of the hanging in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Curfew has been imposed as a preventive measure. The army has not been called out anywhere. The police and the CRPF are maintaining law and order,” he said.
The chief minister appealed to stay calm and control their emotions. “There are some elements among us who would try to vitiate the prevailing peace in the Kashmir Valley using the development.”
The chief minister accompanied by minister Sajjad Kichloo and Director General of Police Ashok Prasad reached here yesterday to supervise the law and order situation in the valley.
Meanwhile, in a blow to the campaign of opposition Congress for the February 14 assembly polls in Tripura, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi yesterday cancelled their trips to the Left-ruled state, a party leader said.
The prime minister postponed his election campaign tour to Nagaland too due to some work related to Afzal Guru’s execution, a party leader here said.
“We have received a message from the Union Home Ministry that Congress president Sonia Gandhi cancelled her visit to Tripura to campaign for the February 14 elections. She was scheduled to address two public meetings here and Kumarghat in northern Tripura on Sunday,” a government official said. IANS
