David Devadas, veteran journalist and author of 'In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir', wrote for the Hindustan Times on December 2 last year why Afzal Guru should not be hanged. We present the column, as a counterview. Courtesy Hindustan Times:

Stick to the core values

December 2, 2012

Afzal Guru, who has been convicted for the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament House, should not be hanged for at least five reasons - and these are quite apart from such moot questions as the efficacy of capital punishment. The most obvious reason he should not be hanged is that he was not present at the site of the crime during the attack, and there is no clinching evidence that he planned it. Particularly after the commutation of the death sentences of Kishori Lal, who burnt to death many Sikhs in Trilokpuri in 1984, and Dara Singh, who burnt to death missionary Graham Staines and his two children in Orissa, one could argue that Guru's is not among those rarest of rare cases for which the Indian law requires capital punishment.

The second reason is the distressing set of questions raised by Guru's testimony that counter-insurgency operatives in Kashmir sent him to Delhi before the attack on Parliament House. A deep, dark cloud of suspicion hangs over a very large number of 'encounters', arson and other insurgency-related events in Kashmir over the past couple of decades. Given this experience, it is easy for Kashmiris to believe that Guru was set up by counter-insurgency operatives colluding with intelligence strategists. It is, therefore, imperative that the air be cleared, at least over this most heinous attack, if not over all those other incidents. This is one of the most vital of the 'confidence building measures' of which one hears much talk. Guru's death might instead ensure that the air is never cleared.

The third reason stems from the second, but relates to law and order in the near term and national security in the longer term. Public anger in Kashmir over the hanging of Guru could be intense. Furious stone-pelting demonstrations were sparked in the summer of 2010 by a series of incidents in which the forces of the state were perceived to have murdered innocent citizens. These included the murder at Machil of three unemployed youths, who were described as militants, and the killing of the teenaged Wamiq Farooq in an enclave across the Dal Lake from Srinagar. Guru's execution might spark similar, uncontrollable rage in Kashmir.

Read more here.

The views expressed by the author are personal.