NGO,lawyer fight over death row convict Afzal Guru

Pancholi made the statement,saying he was representing Guru in his fight for mercy petition which is under consideration of the government.

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP),an NGO led by S A R Geelani,who was acquitted in the 2001 Parliament attack case,soon came out with a statement rubbishing Pancholi and his claim to be Guru’s lawyer.

Geelani,the Working President of CRPP,claimed that Pancholi had nothing to do with the case and Guru was being represented only by his NGO.

He claimed that that Pancholi had never appeared for Guru in any court.

An associate professor in Delhi University,Geelani claimed the CRPP was representing Afzal and Pancholi had nothing to do with the case.

Pancholi rejected this contention. “How can they (CRPP) say that? I have the ‘vakalatnama’ and I met him through proper channels. Then how can they say that I am not his counsel? Whose cause are they serving,” Pancholi said.

Incidentally,Geelani and Pancholi were founding members of an NGO Society for Protection of Detainees and Prisoners Rights (SPDPR) from which the lawyer resigned following differences.

Countering Pancholi,Geelani told PTI that Pancholi was given ‘vakalatnama’ by the SPDPR when he was its member to meet Guru in jail. “After that he had resigned and even Guru had objections to him,” he claimed.

“If he had gone to the President’s House with mercy petition,it was the SPDPR which sent him. We sent him not as his counsel,” he said.

Pancholi dubbed CRPP’s statement as “mischievous” and said he had “the approval from Guru to say about this application.” Pancholi claimed he resigned from the SPDPR along with human rights activist Nandita Haksar as they were not satisfied with the way Geelani and his faction was handling the Afzal case.

“They wanted to mix politics in it. They want to mix Kashmir politics. They are using Guru for their politics. We were against it and wanted a true representation of the case without politics,” Pancholi said.

However,Geelani said it was upto Guru to decide on how he should be portrayed.

The lawyer also alleged that Geelani had collected funds for the case for which “no proper account” was maintained.

Geelani rubbished the claims saying “we never collected funds. I don’t want to make counter claims. Pancholi’s comments are baseless and borne out of frustration.””