Remove Terrorists' Graves From Tihar; PIL Before Delhi HC

New Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking directions to remove the graves of terrorists Mohammad Afzal Guru and Mohammad Maqbool Bhat from the Tihar jail premises.

Both Afzal and Bhat received the death penalty and were executed in Tihar jail. They were then buried in the premises. While Afzal was hanged in 2013, Bhat was executed in 1984.

The mortal remains should be relocated to a secret place, the PIL has urged to prevent glorification of terrorism.

The Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh (VVSS) that filed the PIL has claimed that the presence of the graves inside a state-controlled prison is “illegal, unconstitutional, and against public interest”.

The presence of these graves has turned Central Jail, Tihar, into a site of “radical pilgrimage” where extremist elements gather to venerate convicted terrorists, the petition states.

“This not only undermines national security and public order, but also sanctifies terrorism in direct contravention of the principles of secularism and rule of law under the Constitution of India,” it says.

It has also been claimed in the petition that the existence of these graves inside the jail “violates the express provisions of the Delhi Prisons Rules, 2018”, which mandate disposal of bodies of executed prisoners in a manner that prevents glorification, ensures prison discipline, and maintains public order.

“The petitioners therefore seek the urgent intervention of this court to direct the respondents to remove the said graves from Tihar Jail and ensure their relocation in a secure, undisclosed manner, in line with established state practice in the cases of executed terrorists such as Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Memon, where every precaution was taken to prevent glorification,” the PIL says.

It is now a global practice not to hand over the bodies of dead terrorists to family members, to prevent glorification. Even Osama Bin Laden’s body was disposed of into the sea. The bodies of terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir are also interred in unmarked graves.