Source: The Sangai Express / PTI
New Delhi, September 26:
More than five years after the terror attack on Parliament, a Delhi Court today ordered that Jaish-e-Mohammed militant Mohd Afzal, the main plotter it sentenced to death, be hanged on October 20.The warrant of execution of Afzal's death penalty was issued by Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur who ordered that the convict be hanged at 0600 hours in the Tihar jail premises on October 20.In the warrant for Tihar Jail superintendent, she said "this is to authorise and require you to carry the said sentence (death penalty) into execution by causing the said Mohd Afzal to be hanged by neck until he be dead at 06:00 am on October 20, 2006 as per jail manual".
The execution date was set by the trial Court nearly four years after it had sentenced Afzal to death on December 18, 2002.The punishment confirmed by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
Till now, the JeM militant has not filed mercy petition before the President.
However, experts said he can move the mercy petition even a day before the execution.
Asked whether he will file the merecy petition on behalf of Afzal, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who defended him in the High Court, said till now he has no instruction either from the convict or his family.
Gonsalves said it is the duty of the Judge to inform the convict ( Afzal) in writing that he could file a petition or application before the President or the Governor with a plea for mercy.
He said Afzal or his family members can file a mercy petition and until the plea is rejected the death sentence cannot be executed.
Senior lawyer Sushil Kumar, who defended Afzal in the Supreme Court, he said he was only the arguing counsel in the case and it depends upon the counsel directly authorised by the convict to take up his mercy plea.
It all depends on the instruction that the counsel receives from Afzal or his family, he said.
For Tihar Jail authority, it was the first warrant of execution of death sentence since 1989 when Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, the two assassins of the then Prime Minsiter Indira Gandhi, were hanged to death.