Advertisement

13 December-A Reader: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament

Publisher: Penguin Books India
Price: Rs 200
ISBN: 014310182X
Format: Paperback 
 
Essays by A.G. Noorani, Arundhati Roy, Ashok Mitra, Indira Jaising, Jawed Naqvi, Mihir Srivastava, Nandita Haksar, Nirmalangshu Mukherji, Praful Bidwai, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sonia Jabbar, Syed Bismillah Geelani, Tripta Wahi

On 13 December 2001, the Indian Parliament was attacked by five—some say six—heavily armed men. Five years later, we still do not know who was behind the attack, nor the identity of the attackers. Both the Delhi High court and the Supreme Court have noted that the police violated legal safeguards, fabricated evidence and extracted false confessions. Yet, one man, Mohammad Afzal, has been sentenced to death by hanging to ‘satisfy’ the ‘collective conscience of society’.

This reader brings together fifteen essays by lawyers, academics, journalists and writers who have looked closely at the available facts and raise serious questions about the investigations and the trial. They show how there is hardly a single piece of evidence that stands up to scrutiny, and emphasize the urgent need for an impartial, transparent inquiry into the parliament attack and its aftermath.