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Pakistan watching Afzal case

Nirupama Subramanian

"The sentence on Afzal will set a bad precedent"

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Thursday it was "watching the situation closely" after protests erupted in Jammu and Kashmir against the death sentence awarded to Mohammed Afzal Guru in the Parliament attack case.

The Foreign Ministry said this in a statement regarding the controversial death sentence, but added that as a clemency plea was pending, it would make no further comment on the matter.

The statement came as Prime Minister of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir Sardar Attique Khan made an appeal to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to help save the life of a "compatriot," and a former Law Minister appealed to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to remit the sentence. "I ask the Government in occupied Kashmir that while the All Parties Hurriyat Conference is already trying [to save Afzal's life], they should also play a role in this," Mr. Khan told Dawn.

Senator S.M. Zafar, chairman of the Functional Committee on Human Rights, and a former Law Minister, appealed to Mr. Kalam to save Afzal's life. He said the trial was held in a charged atmosphere. "In these circumstances, awarding the death sentence `to satisfy the collective conscience of Indian society' would set a bad precedent."

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