Afzal Guru hanged: How would you react to Omar Abdullah's remarks, BJP asks Congress

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday trained its guns on the UPA and demanded what action would it take against ally National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah for his remarks in a TV interview against Afzal Guru's hanging. The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister had said that the UPA now faced the grave challenge of proving to the world if this was not a selective execution and demanded to know why the BJP had kept silent on others on death row. He even stated that he would have preferred if the execution did not happen.

Reacting to his statements, BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said, "There is a national sense of relief after Afzal Guru's hanging. The remarks from Omar Abdullah to national TV channels is condemnable. We want to ask Congress on how do they react to their ally talking like this?"

The Congress, while claiming that everybody had a right to express his views, maintained that death penalties were carried out after a very "deliberate scrutiny process".

The Jammu and Kashmir CM had said that he would have preferred if Afzal Guru\'s execution did not happen.

"Capital punishment is given in the rarest of rare cases. Each case rests on its own unique facts. There can never be a generic broad brush when you deal with matters that are so sensitive and have both legal, judicial and constitutional obligations," said I&B minister Manish Tewari.

He added, "We would like to submit that in the case of capital punishment, there is a need to understand and realise that there is a very deliberate scrutiny process that is involved."

"One has to keep all of this in mind while making such remarks," he stated.

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