The Soldier who won India's First Param Vir Chakra:
Lately many pleas have been made that Mohammed
Afzal Guru's execution should be stayed because his
death could fuel separatism in Jammu & Kashmir.
The state chief minister himself has been an ardent
advocate for clemency for the terrorist who attacked
the Indian Parliament in December 2001 (and nearly
provoked a war between India and Pakistan). The
secular protagonists claim that his execution will
make a martyr of Afzal. I will not enter into these
fallacious arguments, but the time has perhaps co
me to remember a true martyr: Major Somnath
Sharma who on 03 November 1947 saved Srinagar
Airport (and Kashmir) at the supreme cost of his life
. Had he not sacrificed his life, Afzal's defenders
would not today make front page news in the Indian
press, for the simple reason that they would be
Pakistani citizens living under a military dictatorship.
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