13 December-a Reader: The Strange Case Of The Attack On The Indian Parliament

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.