What happened to Afzal mercy petition?

Supreme Court on August 4, 2005, had upheld the death sentence awarded to Mohd Afzal of Parliament attack case and subsequently dismissed his review and curative petition. After that Afzal had approached former President A P J Abdul Kalam in late 2006 seeking clemency.

Since then, Afzal is supposedly living as an honourable guest of Govt of India. UPA Govt to please Muslims of India, seen as a vote bank, is sitting (or sleeping) on the mercy petition. Family members of jawans, who sacrificed their lives to defend Parliament and politicians present inside, have protested and returned bravery medals awarded to their loved ones. People of India have protested against this naked minority appeasement and insulting their feelings by the Govt.

Now a surprising thing has happened. One Mr Agrawal had sought, under RTI Act, details of mercy pleas pending till date before the President. Home Ministry in its reply, has given a list of 24 death row convicts, but there is no reference to Afzal’s mercy petition. Can there be a bigger surprise than this?

The list shows one case where a mercy petition by a MP convict was disposed off within a week. The list also has names of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins, Murugan, Santhan and Arivu. But Afzal’s name is missing.