In memoir, Cong’s Shinde blames RK Singh for Afzal hanging row

New Delhi: In his soon-to-be released memoir, Congress leader and former union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has reignited the controversy over one aspect of the hanging of Parliament terror attack conspirator Afzal Guru in 2013. Confirming what Guru’s family has alleged all along , the minister writes that the Congress-led UPA government erred in delaying the news of Guru’s impending execution to his family, thereby denying them a last meeting. Shinde, however, puts the blame on his home secretary, RK Singh, who later went on to become a union minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party government between 2014 and 2024, for this error.

Singh expressed surprise at the minister’s claim. “It’s strange that the home minister doesn’t know the procedure,’’ he said . “The intimation is given by the prison’s department in Delhi government. It was duly sent over the phone. It may have been late but as far as I know it was sent by Tihar prison’s department.”

Guru was convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack where 14 people died. While Guru denied having a hand and filed several clemency petitions, he was hanged in secrecy in February, 2013 and buried in the Tihar Jail complex.

In his book Five Decades of Politics published by Harper Collins, Shinde writes: “Still, I have an admission to make: The Union home secretary’s office was late in informing Afzal’s family. This lapse, due to the home secretary’s department’s laxity, meant that his family could not meet him for one last time. But this much I can say: as far as I was concerned, there was no personal or emotional involvement in the execution.”

The 240-page book by Shinde along with journalist Rasheed Kidwai, traces his journey from a sub-inspector in Maharashtra CID to the minister in charge of internal security.

Incidentally, Shinde mentions only Sonia Gandhi for appointing him as home minister in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet in 2012. He writes,” I had been the Union power minister for over six years when Sonia-ji called me one day. ‘You have to take charge of the home ministry,’ she told me.” Shinde’s term also coincided with the UPA government blaming what it termed saffron terror for incidents such as the Samjhauta express attack and the Mecca Masjid blast.

Shinde points out how RK Singh backed him in the usage of the term “saffron terror”.

He writes in the book, “I vividly recall that shortly after I spoke at Jaipur, Singh was quoted as seconding my view on saffron terror”. He adds that Singh who joined the BJP after his retirement, subsequently changed his views. “Some of the accused did have RSS links but I was very categorical that you cannot have saffron or Hindu terror.”