The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said the government should reject the mercy petition of parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru and not play “vote bank politics” on the issue.
The BJP seized the issue after President Pratibha Singh Patil consented execution of two murder convicts- Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar of Punjab and Mahendra Nath Das of Assam – on death row on Thursday.
BJP senior leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said Congress party is playing vote bank politics on the issue of mercy petition.
“The Parliament attack was an attack on the nation. Not one leader of any political party would have survived if one terrorist had entered inside the parliament with an AK 47 rifle. The entire political leadership of India would have been killed,” Prasad said.
He condemned the “vote bank politics” by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on the issue.
Mohammad Afzal, or Afzal Guru, was convicted of conspiracy in the Dec 2001 attack on Parliament and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004. Six security personnel were killed in the attack along with five terrorists.
The sentence was scheduled to be carried out in 2006 itself, but Afzal was given a stay of execution and remains on death row after his wife filed a mercy petition for Presidential clemency.
Meanwhile, the BJP has also slammed the Congress on the proposed communal violence bill which the party said only makes the majority Hindu community liable for communal riots.
“Only Hindus are liable in this bill for communal violence,” Prasad said, calling the bill discriminatory and another example of vote bank politics.