New Delhi/Srinagar: Afzal Guru’s family members will be allowed to visit his grave for prayer inside the Tihar jail complex in Delhi, the Centre said on Tuesday, even as the family of the Parliament attack convict pressed for the return of his body.
“We have no problem if immediate family of Afzal Guru wants to come and offer prayers at his grave in Tihar jail,” Union Home Secretary R K Singh told reporters in Delhi. Singh was responding to a question on allowing Afzal’s family to offer prayers at his grave after he was hanged and buried in Tihar jail complex in a secret operation last Saturday.
The Tihar jail authorities will soon take a formal decision on the possible date for Afzal’s family to visit the grave, sources said.
The Home Secretary said all belongings left behind in Tihar jail by Afzal will be handed over to his family.
“Belongings of Afzal will be returned to the family,” Singh said. Singh’s statement came a day after Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the government will consider any request by the family of Afzal to visit the grave. The family had expressed a desire to offer “fatiha namaz” (prayer at the grave) and take his belongings. Afzal’s family, meanwhile, said their only demand was that the Centre return his body to enable them to give him a proper burial at their native village in Sopore in Kashmir Valley.
“We have no other demand…the only thing we want is that Afzal’s body be returned to us,” Mohammad Yasin, a cousin of Afzal, told PTI in Srinagar over phone from Sopore. He said the family has written a letter to Tihar jail authorities as well as Deputy Commissioner Baramulla seeking that Afzal’s body be given to them.
“Soon after we came to know about the hanging, we wrote letters to Deputy Commissioner Baramulla and Tihar Jail authorities for return of the body,” Yasin said, adding, they were awaiting a response from the authorities concerned. Asked about the family being allowed to visit Tihar jail, Yasin said it was of no use. “Where will we offer fatiha? We want to bury him here (in Sopore),” he said. (PTI)