India's secret hanging of terrorist angers family, worries activists

For 11 years the family of a convicted terrorist waited and wondered about his fate as he sat on death row. Two weeks ago they found out - from television.

Mohammad Afzal Guru had been hanged in secrecy in a faraway jail in New Delhi. A government letter informing them of the imminent hanging arrived at their home in Kashmir two days after he was dead.

"No words can describe the pain. It was like a bolt from the sky. Our whole family is still locked in that moment. We're still struggling to reconcile with that moment," said Yasin Guru, the dead man's cousin.

India has hanged two men in the past three months, its first executions in eight years. In a departure from past practice, both were done in secrecy.

Rights activists worry the government has set a precedent that could affect the nearly 500 people on death row in India, including four men whose mercy pleas - their last hope of life - were rejected by India's president last week. "The new practice of executing in secret without prior notification to relatives is deeply worrying," said G. Ananthapadmanabhan, head of Amnesty International's India chapter.

Three months earlier, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of a 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, was hanged in equal secrecy. His execution was announced several hours later.

Many believe that the government wanted to avoid violent protests in Kashmir - where a separatist campaign has just begun to wane - that would have erupted had Guru's hanging been announced beforehand.

But that is no consolation to his family or relevant to r ights activists and lawyers who see the two secret hangings as an attack on the values of democratic India.

Guru was convicted in the 2001 attack on India's parliament that killed 14 people when five heavily armed gunmen entered the high-security complex and opened fire. Eight police officers were killed before the five attackers were shot and killed. A gardener also died.

Guru's wife, 13-year-old son and other family members were stunned when they heard on television news that he had been executed, said Yasin Guru. Convicts facing imminent execution are normally allowed a last meeting with their families.

The family is now demanding that the government hand over his body, which has been buried in Tihar jail in New Delhi, where he was executed on February 9.

The government said it sent a letter, dated February 6, informing Guru's family of the execution. But it was mailed February 8, one day before his execution and reached his family in Sopore in Kashmir on February 11, two days after Guru was hanged.

Most of that anger was evident in Kashmir, which erupted into violence after the news of Guru's hanging emerged.

Even Kashmir's chief minister, Omar Abdullah, an ally of New Delhi, said it was unacceptable that the family was not told of the execution and allowed to say goodbye. "If we are going to inform someone by post that his family member is going to be hanged, there is something seriously wrong with the system."