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Needs to be a solid inquiry into why Afzal Guru was made scapegoat: Soni Razdan courts row

| @indiablooms | Jan 21, 2020, at 02:30 pm

Mumbai/IBNS: Bollywood actress Soni Razdan on Tuesday courted a massive row by saying a solid inquiry is required into why terrorist "Afzal Guru was made scapegoat" in the 2001 Parliament attack.

Razdan, also wife of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and mother of actress Alia Bhatt, retweeted a news report by The Print which says Afzal had written a letter where Jammu and Kashmir police officer Davinder Singh, who has been arrested for accompanying two wanted terrorists, was accused of not only "torturing" him or "extorting money" from him but also introducing him to a man who later had attacked the Parliament. 

The actress retweeted with her own statement which reads, "This is a travesty of justice. Who is going to bring back a man from the dead if he is innocent. This is why the death penalty is not to be used lightly. And this is why there also needs to be a solid enquiry into why Afzal Guru was made the scapegoat."

The news report has said, "In the letter, Afzal alleged that Singh and other officers from the J&K police not only tortured him and extorted money, but also introduced him to one of the men who later attacked Parliament. Afzal also claimed that it was Singh who asked him to arrange for a car and a place to stay for the attacker."

After the controversy was blown off, Razdan somewhat jumped into damage control mode and said in an another tweet, "No one is saying he is innocent. But if he was tortured and then ordered by his torturer to do what he did isn’t that what needed to be fully investigated ? Why did no one take his allegations about Devinder Singh seriously. That’s the travesty."

Afzal was hanged to death in 2013 during the Congress regime, twelve years after the Parliament attack.

The terrorist was also in the news in 2016 after several Leftist Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students including their union leader Kanhaiya Kumar had allegedly raised anti-India slogans lamenting the death of Afzal.

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