PUNE, India, 25 May 2008 — Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal yesterday defended the remarks of his boss Shivraj Patil drawing parallels between the cases of Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru and Sarabjit Singh, the Indian currently on a death row in Pakistan. Jaiswal also said an early decision by the president on Afzal’s clemency appeal was unlikely. It takes a minimum of five to seven years for the president to give a decision on a clemency appeal and in Afzal’s case it has been only two and a half years, he said.
