I never found Mr.Shivraj Patil to be a character worthy of my scrutiny. He is so very non existent with his nothing-to-write home-about tenure as the country’s home minister. This time he has found his way to my blog. Thus, I ask in what light should his “Afjal and Sarabjit cases are too similar” remark be seen? The answer is a child’s guess. I wish if I could get into his psyche when he uttered such rubbish.

Mr. Patil has drawn parallels between Afzal Guru, an Indian citizen who masterminded the 2001 Parliamentary attack and Sarabjit Singh, an Indian incarcerated in a Pakistani jail. Add to this the carefully crafted law-will-take-appropriate-stand on Afzal Guru. But his craft of shielding Afzal is poorly crafted, for one can see the signal this ironical comparison is sending to the Pakistan sponsored militants. Yes-you-can-get-away is what Mr.Patil seems to be telling the terrorists.

But one fails to see where the congress actually stands on the Sarabjit Case. On the one hand Mr.Pranab Mukherjee who is in Pakistan talked of discussing Sarabjit Case whose clemency petition is pending before a Pakistani court on humanitarian grounds, on the other hand we have Mr.Patil’s poor comparison of Sarabjit and Afzal.

The remark must also be seen in the context of what importance our politicians attach to the judiciary’s decisions. It must be recollected that in the case of Afzal Guru the Supreme court deemed it fit for him to be sent to the gallows. Mr.Patil’s remark is anything but respectful of the court’s decision.

The Congress dragging-its-feet attitude on Afzal’s hanging clearly is representative of the fact that the congress is trying to shield Afzal Guru by comparing it to the emotive case of Sarabjit. It has all the reasons to do so, its logic might have been derived from the given facts. Firstly at the time of parliament attack in 2001 BJP was in the power and this reason is enough for the Congress to take a why-should-we-do-something-about-it approach. This unfortunately is very narrow view, for the petty rivalry between the two parties cannot overrule the parliament attack, for an attack on parliament is in effect an attack on the Indian Democracy. Imagine what this attack would have done to the faith of millions of Indians when one gets to see that the highest legislative body can be attacked by the terrorists at their will. Secondly when Mr.Patil says a particular community cannot be attacked for every attack on the country, he is appeasing the minority. For this means more votes and the power hungry congress knows how crucial it is to have the minority votes.

I feel sorry for Mr.Patil for expressing such views and thus drawing flak from almost everyone in the country. Mr.Patil is just the face behind the message, he is expressing his party’s views on the matter. In other words he did nothing but his job. Unfortunately he has gone blind doing his job, for he cannot see the difference between Afzal - a terrorist and Sarabjit - a victim of mistaken identity. What Mr.Patil and Congress have failed is that while taking a stand on Afzal’s case they missed on a very crucil point. Here is the point, that the Indians are neither blind nor dumb and this translates to the fact that people can clearly see through the Congress’ poor strategy. Firstly it was an unexplained delay in Afzal’s hanging, this time it is yet other pretext for the same.