Guru’s trial and conviction have been controversial to the extent that the Booker prizewinner author Arundhati Roy wrote a book 13 December questioning the conviction. The death sentence in itself is a controversy.

In its August 2005 judgement, the Supreme Court of India admitted that “The conviction under section 3 (5) of POTA is also set aside because there is no evidence that he is a member of a terrorist organisation, once the confessional statement is excluded. Incidentally, we may mention that even going by confessional statement, it is doubtful whether the membership of a terrorist gang or organisation is established.” But the court also concluded “The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.”

When Guru was hanged in Tihar Jail early in the morning of 9 February, his helpless family got to know of the development only through television channels. In a display of shocking insensitivity at the plight of Guru's wife (now widow) and son, the government decided to inform them through speed post. When people wondered how would the message reach his family in a place, which came under under curfew and siege, the ministers scored points at the fact that the message was delivered within a few days, despite the volatile situation in the Valley.

Early in the morning of 9 February, when I, sitting in my smugly furnished apartment in Montreal, Canada, called my younger brother and sister, who are living in Baramullah, quite close to Sopore, the home town of Afzal Guru, to switch on the TV to see the news, the answer came, “TV screens are black.” Before I could say anything, the line went dead.

As I repeatedly tried calling my siblings who were alone in my house in Kashmir, my biggest worry was not how they were going to feed themselves during the coming days. I was chiefly concerned about whether they would stay safe and what was going to follow next, given the imposition of curfew and blacking out of TV stations, phone lines and the Internet under the pretext of maintaining law and order in Kashmir. But, what about the peace, sanity and well being of my siblings, who are just 18 and 16 themselves? What about the seemingly endless days and nights of anxiety that my parents, who were visiting New Delhi when the hanging took place, went through, when even they couldn't contact their children for those many days, and fretted every moment about being able to do nothing about the matter?

I got updates from my journalist friends in Delhi about clashes in Sopore, the home town of Guru and also town where many of my family and friends live.

As I watched the Indian news anchors celebrating an unfair trial, as I searched for dissent from the country of growing civil society, I desperately looked for oases of sanity that condemned the ghastly spectacle of hangman's justice. I got some solace from my Indian friends, who were apprehensive, if not for the Guru’s death sentence, at least for the siege in Kashmir.

Six million population locked down in Kashmir, their voices choked, right to protest muzzled, its TV services jammed, internet and social media scaled down across the ‘infamous’ valley demographics. All managed by the planet’s largest democracy, yet till date there isn’t a single coordinated condemnation from the world community at large. I scanned international media for a small report – Human Rights Watch for a press release. Had phone networks, TV stations and Internet being blocked in any other part of the world, it would have made headlines. I wondered why wasn't Kashmir newsworthy, just because it is occupied by a democracy and not a dictatorship. You, the democracies of the world, your double standards are breathtaking.

For India, hanging Guru seems to be one of its many achievements aimed at sliding down its human rights record. But for me, as a common Kashmiri, sitting here in Montreal thousands of miles away from the turmoil, it adds to many sleepless nights that I have spent in 2008, 2009, and 2010, staring at news and waiting for replies from my friends who seem to be online but are not.

There are enough pulses and rice stored (storing food for months is what conflict taught Kashmiris) but what if it turns out like the 2010 mass protest. Would we able to go to Kashmir soon and be with our children in these tough times, said my Mom in a worried voice.

There were no comforting words I could offer to her, except hoping that the magic number on my phone worked, so that I could talk to my brother and sister in Kashmir again. When I finally did, my relief was tinged with bitterness and pain for all those who still were waiting with bated breath to hear from their dear ones. (IPA Service)