Srinagar: Tabassum Guru, the wife of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Gu-ru, said on Saturday that she would wait for his mo-rtal remains till her last breath.
She lamented that the successive governments have ignored her and her only child Ghalib’s repeated pleas that their right to give a “decent burial” to the mortal remains of Guru be acknowledged and conceded too “on moral and humanitarian grounds”
“Six years have lapsed. My son and I have been pleading before New Delhi that the mortal remains of my husband may be returned to us so that we can give them a decent Islamic burial here at his native place. The people of Kashmir also want it,” she said over the phone from her home in Seer Jagir area of Doabgah suburb of the north-western town of Sopore.
Guru was after the hanging buried within the premises of Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 9, 2013. Ms Tabassum said, “I shall wait for Afzal Sahib’s jasad-e-khaki (mortal remains) till my last breath. I want to see him being given a decent burial as per the Islamic law and our own traditions. Can you deny me this right? No!”
Meanwhile, a shutdown called by an alliance of key separatist leaders brought life to a standstill across Kashmir Valley on Guru’s sixth death annive-rsary on Saturday. Shops and other businesses rem-ained closed across the Muslim-majority Valley whereas only private vehicles and auto-rickshaws could be seen plying on select roads except in those areas where security restrictions were in force.
Earlier, the authorities had placed key separatist leaders under house arrest or the police took them in preventive custody. Security forces enforced a lockdown in some parts of summer capital Srinagar and in the north-western town of Sopore to hold back protests. Guru’s brother Muhammad Yasin Guru said that because of the restrictions in and around Doabgah even their relatives could not visit the family on his death anniversary. “You know, there is only one approach road to our area. It had been blocked by government forces,” he said.
Leave common people aside even our relatives could not visit us because of strict restrictions,” he said.
The authorities had earlier announced suspending train services between northwest Kashmir’s Baramulla town and Banihal town in the Jammu region “as a precautionary measure”.
The authorities said that the security will continue to remain tight across the Valley for two more days as the separatists have called for observing a shutdown also on Monday to mark the anniversary of Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF) co-founder Muhammad Maqbool Butt. The separatists have also renewed the demand that the mortal remains of Guru and Butt be returned so that they are given a “decent and befitting burial” in the Valley.
