SRINAGAR, SEPTEMBER 26 When the “black warrant” was issued today against Afzal Guru fixing October 20 as the last day of his life, it’s being seen here as the “logical end’’ to the life of a militant who, according to security agencies, played an “important role’’ in one of India’s most daring terror strikes: the December 13, 2001, suicide attack on Parliament. For me, Afzal was, at first, a friendly classmate who loved poetry and discussed books during lunch breaks.

If Afzal is executed — there are reports that he hasn’t decided on a mercy petition to the President yet — he will become the second Kashmiri to go to the gallows in New Delhi after JKLF founder Maqbool Butt was hanged on February 11, 1984.

In 1987, Afzal and his cousin, a co-accused in the Parliament attack case, Shaukat Guru, were studying with me in the Muslim Educational Trust (MET) - an English-medium higher secondary school in Sopore. Afzal was the class’s best student who would surprise teachers with his wit and intelligence.

Born in a well-to-do business family of Doabgah in north Kashmir, Afzal was raised by his elder brother after he lost his father. Afzal’s uncle, Abdul Ahad Guru, was one of Kashmir’s most prominent cardiologist, who later became an ideologue of the pro-independence JKLF and was later killed by a rival group in an internal militant feud.

Inspired by his doctor uncle, Afzal, too, chose medicine and joined the Jhelum Valley Medical College in Srinagar. When in the autumn of 1989, militancy erupted in the Valley spearheaded by the JKLF, Kashmir changed and so did Afzal’s life.

He suddenly said goodbye to his medical college, joined the JKLF, crossed the Line of Control to take arms training. The Valley was in turmoil and we lost touch.

Years later, Afzal told me that he “didn’t fit in his new role” and his romance with the gun had extinguished soon after he crossed the LoC. Afzal returned home and kept a low profile even as he was associated with JKLF. He was arrested by the Border Security Force and after spending several months in jail, was released.

After his release, Afzal tried to return to study medicine but failed. He then headed for New Delhi, planning to continue his studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

This, too, didn’t work and he returned to start a health-care appliances business after he shifted his base to Srinagar where he lived in a rented accommodation in Rajbagh.

When I met Afzal in 2000, his business was doing well. His cousin Shaukat Guru, however, had left for New Delhi soon after MET for further studies. In the capital, Shaukat, while studying to become a journalist, met a Sikh girl (who later married him and took a new name Afsan Guru. Soon, Afzal, too, got married. He has a child.

Then suddenly his name, along with that of his cousin Shaukat, propped up in the Parliament attack investigations. How did Afzal join the Jaish-e-Mohammad and help facilitate the suicide attack on Parliament is a mystery. Perhaps, the journey of a young man, from being a staunch Kashmiri nationalist in school to an Islamic militant will too die with him on October 20.

Will complicate matters: Valley separatists

SRINAGAR: Valley separatists said Mohammed Afzal’s execution would be a setback for the peace process.

• JKLF’s Yaseen Malik: Refers to Maqbool Bhat’s hanging in 1984, says Afzal’s execution “will only complicate matters”

• Hurriyat spokesman Shahidul Islam: “Hanging will only set in a new phase of alienation and reverse the goodwill”

• Hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani: “India claims to be pursuing a process to solve Kashmir but it’s going ahead with the hanging of an innocent Kashmiri. How can the two things gel?”

• Shabir Shah: “India should not go ahead with the hanging at this point of time. There are many things at stake”

Mail the author at muzamiljaleel@yahoo.com/ muzamil.jaleel@expressindia.com

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