Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tribute to the people who had sacrificed their lives in the deadly terror attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 and said that the country will never forget the cowardly act of terror conducted by terrorist groups linked to Pakistan on this very day 19 years ago.
"We will never forget the cowardly attack on our Parliament on this day in 2001. We recall the valour and sacrifice of those who lost their lives protecting our Parliament. India will always be thankful to them," the Prime Minister said in an early morning tweet.
The Parliament House hosted a function at 10:30 am wherein floral tributes were paid to martyrs who sacrificed their lives during the 2001 terror attack.
President Ram Nath Kovind also said that the nation gratefully remembers brave martyrs who laid down their lives defending Parliament. "The nation gratefully remembers the brave martyrs who laid down their lives defending the Parliament on this day in 2001. While commemorating the great sacrifice of those defenders of the temple of our democracy, we strengthen our resolve to defeat the forces of terror," Kovind tweeted.
Most audacious, most alarming
On December 13, 2001, a five-member suicide squad belonging to terror outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), stormed the Parliament complex in New Delhi and opened fire indiscriminately. While the Lok Sabha was in session: the Houses were adjourned just 40 minutes prior to the time of the attack, but around 100 members, including several parliamentarians and staff were present inside the building.
Around 14 people, mostly security forces and one civilian, were killed in this incident.
The attackers came in an Ambassador car and were able to gain entry because of a forged government sticker. But as the car moved inside the Parliament complex, one of the staff members became suspicious. The vehicle was thus forced to turn back and in the course, hit then vice president Krishan Kant's vehicle.
The gunmen, armed with AK-47s and grenades, then got down and opened fire. The attack lasted for about 30 minutes, and all the five terrorists were neutralised outside the building itself. However, five security personnel of Delhi Police, one woman constable of the CRPF and two security assistants of Parliament Watch and Ward section died preventing the entry of terrorists into Parliament House. A gardener and a photojournalist too lost their lives.
Pakistan's role in hatching terrorism
Shortly after the incident, BJP leader L K Advani had said in the Lok Sabha that the attack "was executed jointly by Pakistan-based and supported terrorist outfits, namely, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. These two organisations are known to derive their support and patronage from Pak ISI."
Within days, four people were arrested and charged as masterminds of the attack. The case against the four - Mohammed Afzal Guru, Shaukat Hussain, Afsan Guru and SAR Geelani - went on for about a decade, with the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court eventually acquitting two, and upholding the death sentence of one.
Geelani, a professor in Delhi University, was acquitted for "need of evidence" by the Delhi high court in 2003, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005. Afsal Guru, too, was cleared of charges and Hussain served jail time. Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013.
India still remains vulnerable to terrorism
With Afzal Guru's hanging, the Parliament attack case met its closure for most people. But for some, that was not the logical end as the point-person named by Afzal Guru in connection with the Parliament attack case was never examined, his role never probed.
Author-activist Arundhati Roy, in her 2006 book, 'The Hanging of Afzal Guru and the Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament' had particularly called for probing the role of Davinder Singh in the 2001 terror attack. Singh was a deputy superintendent of police in Jammu and Kashmir. Afzal Guru had named him, first as the police officer who tortured him months before the Parliament attack, and then as the man who tasked him with the job of ferrying one Mohammad, a Jaish terrorist, to Delhi days before December 13 incident. Mohammad was later identified as one of the terrorists who attacked Parliament and shot dead in retaliatory action.
In 2019, 18 years later, Davinder Singh was arrested in Kashmir on Saturday, was caught red-handed ferrying two 'wanted' terrorists.
Now, 19 years later, when we review the Parliament attack case, Afzal Guru's inappropriate sentencing, just for being a Kashmiri separatist, is not only a huge embarrassment to the security establishment in Jammu and Kashmir as well as in New Delhi but also exposes the fallacy of criminal investigation by Indian agencies and quick-fix approach of the government to bring closure of a serious issue in the public eye.
