MUMBAI, 24 May 2008 — Home Minister Shivraj Patil has drawn the ire of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray over his remarks on the fate of Afzal Guru, who has been sentenced to death for an attack on the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13, 2001.
In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamna yesterday, Thackeray wondered if Patil was the home minister of Pakistan. He savaged Patil, saying he was the “most spineless” federal home minister that India ever had since independence.
During a press conference in his home district of Latur on Wednesday, Patil drew a parallel between Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, on the death row in Lahore, Pakistan, and Afzal Guru. The Indian government’s appeal for pardon for Sarabjit, convicted of triggering several bomb blasts in Lahore, is pending with Islamabad.
Asked by journalists about the delay in hanging Afzal, Patil shot back, saying: “You go to Pakistan and demand that Sarabjit should not be hanged and in India you are demanding that Afzal must hang. What are you trying to do?”
Responding to accusations of the Bharatiya Janata Party that he had been soft on terrorists, Patil said it was the BJP leaders who accompanied terrorists to Kandahar and freed them.
