November 23, 2024 03:59 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
'Third World War has begun:' Ex-Ukraine military commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny | UK-India Free Trade Agreement negotiations to resume in early 2024 | UK can arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits country based on ICC warrant | Centre to send over 10,000 additional soldiers to violence-hit Manipur amid fresh violence | Chhattisgarh: 10 Maoists killed during encounter with security forces in Sukma
P Chidambaram says Afzal Guru case not correctly decided

P Chidambaram says Afzal Guru case not correctly decided

| | 25 Feb 2016, 12:16 pm
New Delhi, Feb 25 (IBNS) Amid the JNU row and arrests of students for glorifying Afzal Guru, former Union Minister P Chidambaram expressed grave doubts over Guru's involvement in the 2001 Parliament Attack and said that there is a possibility that the case was wrongly judged, here on Thursday.

Guru was hanged three years earlier while Chidambaram was still in office.

Going against the decision handed over by his own UPA government, Chidambaram was quoted by Economic Times as saying, "I think it is possible to hold an honest opinion that the Afzal Guru case was perhaps not correctly decided."

The seasoned Congressman said that he could not express anything earlier because it was his government which decided Guru's fate but clarified that a certain individual has the right to hold an opinion.

When asked what he would have done, Chidambaram said that it is difficult to say anything as these are different matters and depends on a lot of factors.

"There were grave doubts about his involvement (in the conspiracy behind the attack on Parliament) and even if he was involved, there were grave doubts about the extent of his involvement. He could have been imprisoned for life without parole for (the) rest of his natural life," the former union Finance Minister said.

Chidambaram also took a swipe at the BJP for terming the JNU students as seditious.

He said, "Free speech is not seditious speech. Is your speech a spark in the powder keg (inciting violence) only then it amounts to sedition."

Reiterating his party's stance, he said, "It is an age where students have the right to be wrong…And the university is a place where you don’t always need to be profound, you can be ridiculous also."

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.