FILE: Afzal Guru, convicted for the attack on Parliament, was hanged on February 9, 2013 (Agence France-Presse photo)
The Union Home Ministry's refusal to hand over the mortal remains of executed Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru to his family gives rise to suspicion that he might have been cremated rather than buried inside Delhi's Tihar Jail, lawmaker Sheikh Abdul Rashid has claimed.
"The Ministry of Home Affairs is maintaining its stand that Afzal Guru's remains cannot be handed over to his family as he was buried, as per jail manual, in an unmarked grave. It looks amply clear from the stand that there is a chance that Afzal Guru's body has been cremated rather than buried, which is a gross violation of religious norms," he said.
Mr Rashid, the Independent MLA from Langate constituency in north Kashmir, had moved a resolution in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2012 seeking clemency for Guru, who was hanged on February 9, 2013 inside Tihar Jail.
Mr Rashid, in a statement, termed the Home Ministry's refusal as a "travesty of justice and paragon of inhuman standards".