Why Mohd.Afzal deserves mercy

Even as the BJP seeks to make the non-hanging of Mohd.Afzal, the lone convict in the Parliament attack case facing death penalty, as a major campaign issue, the facts in the MHA files show that he indeed deserves mercy. And Afzal's mercy petition itself did not get the media attention that it merits, even though it was the only mercy petition to have been published (in 2007) so far. In two separate articles in latest Frontline, Bikram Jeet Batra and I examine his case with an eye for historical and contemporary details here and here.