Afzal's wife meets President Kalam

Mohammed Afzal Guru is facing the gallows for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament.

His family is trying its best to save him. As a last ditch effort, they called upon President A P J Abdul Kalam at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.

After a 20-minute meeting with Kalam, Afzal's wife Tabassum told reporters that the President had assured her that he will go through the petition seeking clemency for Afzal.

Tabassum, accompanied by her seven-year-old son Ghalib, mother Ayesha Begum and lawyers Nandita Haksar and N D Panchauli, expressed hope that justice will be done and her husband would be pardoned.

Asked why her husband had not filed a mercy petition himself, she said, "He lost all hope in the system when he did not receive justice either in the Sessions court, the High Court or the Supreme Court."

"We informed the President that it was one-sided justice and the trial was not fair," she claimed.

Haksar, also a social activist, said the President had asked Ghalib about his future plans, to which he responded by saying that he wanted to become a doctor and this will be possible only if his father remained alive.

Image: Afzal Guru's wife Tabassum Tabasum addresses the media outside the Rashtrapati Bhavan after meeting President Abdul Kalam.
Photograph: Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images

Also Read: Arundhati Roy makes a case for Afzal
Tell us: Should Afzal be pardoned?
Don't Miss: Parliament Attack Coverage