New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has denied that the Union Home Ministry has written a letter to her government and asked it to explain what is it doing about the mercy petition of Afzal Guru, the Parliament attack convict who is on death row.
"I have not received any letter (from Home Ministry). Maybe the Home Department (of the Delhi government received it)," she said on Monday. Dikshit is in charge of the Home Department.
Dikshit said this when reporters questioned her about a newspaper report on Monday that the Home Ministry had sent a reminder to her government and asked it to give its comments on Guru’s mercy petition. Guru is imprisoned in Delhi’s Tihar jail for his role in the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament.
The Centre wrote to the Delhi government in April last year and asked for its views on Guru’s petition, but Dikshit said she would study the matter after the Lok Sabha elections. A year after the elections, she was yet to decide on the matter.
Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily had in June 2009 told CNN-IBN Guru’s mercy petition was 27th on the list of death convicts who have appealed for their punishment to be commuted. His petition will be dealt with “according to the system”, he said.
“I am not saying whether it is Afzal Guru or somebody else. Afzal Guru is 27th in the rank but the question is things have to be done according to the system,” said Moily.
The UPA government is perceived to be under pressure to decide about Guru’s petition after a Mumbai court award the death sentence to Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Mumbai attacks terrorist, on May 6.
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