Written By: Panini Anand
Courtesy: pratirodh.com.
The wife of Afzal Guru, Tabassum, in her first media interview few days after her husband’s hanging, outlines the politics done to in cash the martyrdom of her husband. She speaks to Panini Anand at Afzal’s ancestral home in Seer Jagir village of Sopore tehseel in Baramula district. Excerpts-
What you want to say to the government of India?
I hate Indian government. Your government is ghatiya. You all are butchers. You killed my husband without any evidence and reason. You killed him for your politics and bad games. Why you have done this to me. Why Indians are continuously attacking us. There is nothing left in my life now. You got what you wanted.
You want to get the body and belongings of your husband?
I want my husband’s body here. But I leave all to Allah now; he is witnessing everything. He will not spare any of these people. This government, police, politicians, media; all of them would pay for what they have done. They didn’t even inform us. They hanged a man for their political benefits. It’s a continuous pain for me.
How you look at the voices who are echoing against the hanging of Afzal?
What is the benefit now of saying anything. I don’t need anything now. If he would have been alive, we had fought for the justice. Now what is left; what they are crying for. Till the time he lived, he fought for justice alone. No one helped him. He was not given a chance to say and put his things. The entire big nation was unable to provide him a single advocate for his case. The person who fought for him was actually neither represented him nor put the things properly.
Not even your family and the separatist groups…?
No one The family was busy with other things. They have their responsibilities and limitations. Separatist groups didn’t support us. All they did was politics in his name; they used his name and they are using it even after his death. The Allah will not spare any of them. These separatists; they can sell their own sons for benefits; I have no reason to trust them. Even the co-accused find their safe acquisition but no one came out to help my innocent husband.
My husband paid for all other accused as well. Everyone put all responsibilities on him. They got legal aid but my husband got nothing. He paid on behalf of all of them.
Did he wrote any letters to SAS Geelani or other separatists saying that he or his family would have not filed a mercy petition; he apologized for it?
It’s all false and fake. He never wrote letters to them. They have surfaced few letters in his name. It’s not true. He wanted a normal life. I know it very well that these letters in the name of my husband are prepared only for the political benefits.
The problem is that what has been propagated and mostly told about him is not the reality of his life. The reality is quite different.
Like what… please tell us more about him?
Why you asking today. The man is no more. What sense it makes. No one bothered to ask these questions and know about him when he was tortured and harassed, when he was alive and struggling for the justice, when the case was in court and he was projected as an accused in a case.
You married him in 1998; you knew about his ideology, he was influenced with the idea of ‘Azad Kashmir’, his going cross the border and coming back…?
He was my relative; I was aware of his thoughts, ideology. He was an honest man who never thought about hurting anyone. He believed in Allah, he believed in humanity. A good and kind man, I must say; different from many others. I am proud to be his wife.
Did police and other security agencies often picked him for interrogation, tortured him during these years since his marriage to the Parliament attack incident?
No, it was not an often thing. They asked him about few things but it was not happening with Afzal only; every second man is bound to live in those conditions. People are picked and interrogated. There are thousands of Afzal’s in the valley who have been suffering for the years but let me tell you, your police in Delhi is worse. They are inhumans
Afzal was interrogated, tortured and harassed in Delhi. I can’t even describe the kind of torture given to him there. Even thinking about it is painful. They have done worse things to him which one couldn’t imagine
Media has shown his interview in which he is confessing the crime. Did anyone ever tried to know that in what circumstances, he was confessing. What he was told and threatened? What was going to happen to his wife and son if he would have refused? And the sold out Indian media is so shameless that they repeatedly telecast it even after his death without even trying to know the real part of the story.
Did he have any hope for justice left when you meet him for the last time?
Not at all… He suggested nine advocates for his case but he didn’t get any. He never had any hope from the Indian government and the judicial system for justice and peace. You have harassed and tortured us endlessly.
The widows of policemen killed in parliament attack are saying that justice has been done by hanging your husband?
How justice can be done when justice is denied. If they think, justice has been done, they are wrong. Indian government cheated them as well. The real culprits will never be found. They hanged an innocent man and the case is closed now. The parliament attack chapter is finish after keeping the “conscience of the people”.
Tell them, their husbands died; my husband is a martyr and martyrs never die. I am proud of him.
How you see the future of your only son, Ghalib?
He will follow his father’s footsteps. His father was a great man. Ghalib ke baap ne apna naam raushan kiya, unka beta bhi unki tarah apna aur unka naam raushan karega. I will make him a good and honest man like his father.