Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Thursday that he doesn’t believe in the political race some parties seem to be in over the Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru’s hanging will help them at all.
“I’m not sure whether the people of India are as foolish as some politicians perhaps would like to believe they are. I don’t think hanging Afzal Guru is going to win a single parliamentary seat for any political party let alone a majority in Parliament,” he told this newspaper on being asked if he thought the Congress and the BJP in particular are slot in a competition over the issue for obvious political reasons and to play to the gallery. He added, “If there is some thinking of this being a sort of political race, I think it is highly misplaced.” Mr Abdullah said that as an individual he was against the death penalty. “I haven’t seen it helped anywhere. I remember as a child fear was induced into us particularly when we visited Delhi about Bila and Ranga because they were famous child killers. Hanging them didn’t change anything for crime.” He asserted that hanging Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front cofounder Maqbool Butt didn’t change anything either. “In fact, it created more problems. I, therefore, say that hanging Afzal Guru will probably create more problems than it will solve.”
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‘CBI can’t arrest the influential’
AGE CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi
June 24: The Delhi high court on Thursday criticised CBI functioning saying the investigating agency prefers not to arrest influential people in corruption cases. The court made the remarks when a person accused of theft pleaded for bail contending that even a former Union minister, who was allegedly involved in a multi-crore scam, was granted such relief.
“The case of Sukh Ram was not a case of theft. It was a case of disproportion assets and CBI is known for the fact that it does not arrest persons against whom it registers cases but simply files chargesheet and more so when the persons involved hold high positions,” Justice S.N. Dhingra said.
In this case, the police alleged the accused Brij Mohan is involved along with others in a case of theft of Rs 27.50 lakhs by taking out money from the dicky of a vehicle.