New Delhi [India], July 31 : Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday refuted Union Home Minister Amit Shah's claims regarding the execution of terrorist Afzal Guru, calling his statement a "mixture of insinuation, lie and distortion."
In a post on X, Chidambaram clarified that the proceedings relating to the execution of the Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru did not take place during his tenure as Home Minister of India.
"Home Minister Mr Amit Shah made a statement in the Rajya Sabha that 'Afzal Guru could not be executed as long as P Chidambaram was Home Minister. The statement is a mixture of insinuation, lie and distortion," Chidambaram said.
Mentioning the timeline of events, Chidambaram said, "After the conviction and sentence by the Courts, Afzal Guru's wife filed, on his behalf, a mercy petition to the President of India in October 2006 The President rejected the mercy petition on 3-2-2013. Afzal Guru was hanged six days later on 9-2-2013. I was Home Minister during 1-12-2008 and 31-7-2012. During the entire period, the mercy petition was pending before the President. The law is that a sentence of death cannot be carried out until the mercy petition is disposed of."
https://x.com/PChidambaram_IN/status/1950765808021561755
Chidambaram's remarks come after Amit Shah's criticism in Rajya Sabha of the former Home Minister over the latter's "evidence" remark on Operation Sindoor.
"Afzal Guru was not hanged till he (Chidambaram) was the Home Minister", Shah said while lashing out at the Congress leader for questioning whether the terrorists were "homegrown" or came from Pakistan.
"Chidambaram demanded my resignation and questioned Operation Sindoor. He repeatedly challenged the evidence that those involved in the Pahalgam attack were Pakistani terrorists. Today, I want to ask him--who was he trying to protect? Pakistan? Lashkar-e-Taiba? Or the terrorists themselves?" Shah said.
"Aren't you ashamed of this?" Shah asked, adding, "But by God's grace, on the very day he raised these questions, all three terrorists were killed."
Chidambaram, who served as Home Minister in the UPA tenure, had said in a recent interview with a news outlet that the Government was "unwilling to disclose what the NIA has done all these weeks. Have they identified the terrorists, where they came from? I mean, for all we know, they could be homegrown terrorists. Why do you assume that they came from Pakistan? There's no evidence of that. They are also hiding the losses."