Former finance minister P Chidambaram has now voiced his opinion to the JNU row which has kicked off a national uproar.
Nearly three years after Afzal Guru was hanged, Chidambaram has questioned the extent of his role in the 2001 Parliament attack, The Economic Times reports.
In an interview to the daily, Chidambaram said:
I think it is possible to hold an honest opinion that the Afzal Guru case was perhaps not correctly decided. But being in government you cannot say the court has decided the case wrongly because it was the government that prosecuted him. But an independent person can hold an opinion that the case was not decided correctly. There were grave doubts about his involvement (in the conspiracy behind the attack on Parliament) and even if he was involved, there were grave doubts about the extent of his involvement. He could have been imprisoned for life without parole for rest of his natural life.
He added it is wrong to hold anyone who has the same opinion as “anti-national” and said the sedition charges on the six JNU students were “outrageous”.
Chidambaram was Home Minister from 2008 to 2012 and Guru was found guilty and hanged in 2013, when Sushil Kumar Shinde had replaced him.
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