Afzal laughed at idea of facing gallows ever: wife

Executed Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's wife on Sunday claimed "he used to laugh at the idea of him facing the gallows ever". Guru, found guilty in the 2001 Parliament attack, was hanged a year ago on February 9 inside the Tihar jail and was buried there.

Executed Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's wife on Sunday claimed "he used to laugh at the idea of him facing the gallows ever".

"Afzal didn't believe he would be hanged. When I met him at the time the Supreme Court had pronounced death penalty against him, he was smiling," said Guru's wife Tabassum in an interview to a Srinagar-based newspaper on Guru's first death anniversary.

Guru, found guilty in the 2001 Parliament attack, was hanged a year ago on February 9 inside the Tihar jail and was buried there.

Recalling her conversation with Guru after the SC upheld his death sentence, Tabassum said: "His younger brother asked him to make a last wish or something, but Afzal laughed, and asked his brother, 'Do you believe that I will be hanged?' Then Afzal turned to me. 'Will they hang me?' I replied 'No'."

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She claimed the political fallout of separatist JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat's hanging in 1984 kept Guru's hopes of not facing the gallows afloat.

"He used to say, 'Till now they haven't been able to get rid of the burden of hanging one Maqbool Bhat, they can't afford to hang me. He believed New Delhi would let him rot in jail, but won't hang him," she said.

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Guru's wife claimed their son Ghalib, who is in Class nine, believes "the injustice consumed his father".

"He (Ghalib) reads it all on the internet. He knows everything from A-Z of the case," she said.

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