Maqbool Butt: A Hanging Without Due Process — Lawfare, Constitutional Breach, and the Making of a Political Martyr: By Salman Khan.

On 11 February 1984, India executed Maqbool Butt, founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), inside Tihar Jail, New Delhi. His body was never returned to his family. His grave was never marked. His trial was never reopened. And the due process he was entitled to—under India’s own Constitution—was never fully honoured.

This was not merely an execution. It was lawfare—the strategic use of law to eliminate a political opponent while preserving a veneer of legality.

“Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done.”— R v Sussex Justices (1924)

In the case of Maqbool Butt, neither occurred.

A Trial Frozen in Time, Revived for Convenience

Maqbool Butt was convicted in 1968 for the killing of an Indian intelligence officer. He was sentenced to death. However, the sentence was never carried out. Butt escaped custody in 1968 and remained at large for years.

Crucially, under Indian criminal jurisprudence, a death sentence does not exist in perpetuity. Execution requires active confirmation, procedural continuity, and the preservation of appeal rights.

When Butt was re-arrested in 1976, no fresh trial was conducted. No judicial review assessed whether the conviction still met constitutional standards. No consideration was given to changed circumstances, procedural delays, or international human rights norms that had evolved in the intervening years.

Instead, the Indian state revived a dormant death warrant, effectively transforming a decades-old conviction into an instrument of political expediency.

“Delay itself is a ground for commutation of death sentence.”— T.V. Vatheeswaran v. State of Tamil Nadu (Indian Supreme Court, 1983)

Yet Maqbool Butt was denied this protection—despite binding precedent.

Breaking India’s Own Constitutional Safeguards

India’s Article 21 guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty except according to procedure established by law. Indian jurisprudence has consistently interpreted this to mean fair, just, and reasonable procedure.

But in Butt’s case:

• Mercy petitions were opaque and non-transparent

• Legal representation was severely restricted

• Family access was denied

• The execution was conducted in secrecy

• The body was withheld, violating humanitarian norms

“The right to life includes the right to dignity, even in death.”— Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi

The refusal to return Butt’s remains was not incidental. It was deliberate. A state fearful of memory is a state aware of injustice.

International Law: Silent Violations

By 1984, India was already bound by customary international law standards concerning:

• Fair trial guarantees

• Prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of life

• Rights of the condemned to seek clemency

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)—which India ratified in 1979—mandates that the death penalty, where retained, may only be imposed after a final judgment rendered by a competent court following due process.

The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly held that executions following flawed trials constitute arbitrary executions.

Maqbool Butt’s hanging fits squarely within that definition.

Lawfare, Not Justice

What distinguishes Butt’s execution is timing.

He was hanged days after the killing of an Indian diplomat in Birmingham, an act India publicly linked—without judicial determination—to Kashmiri militants. Butt was used as a symbolic substitute, an act of retributive state violence masquerading as judicial closure.

“When law becomes a weapon, justice becomes collateral damage.”

This is the essence of lawfare:using courts, procedures, and legality to achieve what politics cannot justify openly.

The Making of a Martyr, Not a Deterrent

States often believe executions erase movements. History teaches the opposite.

Maqbool Butt’s execution:

• Did not resolve Kashmir

• Did not end resistance

• Did not strengthen India’s democratic credentials

Instead, it entrenched a narrative of selective justice, colonial governance, and constitutional hypocrisy.

“You can kill a man, but you cannot execute an idea.”— Often attributed to Victor Hugo

Four decades later, Butt’s grave remains inside a prison—yet his memory circulates freely in diplomatic briefings, academic discourse, and human rights advocacy.

Why This Case Still Matters

For diplomats, it raises questions of state accountability.For scholars, it illustrates constitutional erosion under security discourse.For legal practitioners, it is a textbook case of due process failure.For activists, it is evidence that law without justice is merely power in robes.

Maqbool Butt was hanged in 1984.But the legal questions surrounding his execution remain unanswered.

And until they are, the case will continue to indict—not the condemned—but the state that claimed to act in the name of law.

History Is Watching

Mr. President, the world watches as South Africa keeping eye wide shut and remain numb on the tragedy of Kashmir. History, too, watches — as do the ghosts of those who perished in the fight for our own freedom.

May we not be remembered as the generation that betrayed their legacy. May we, instead, rise as the nation that once again chose the side of humanity.

Engage India on multi national foras like BRICS, IORA, IBSA, G20 on their human rights crime in Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir IIOJK. Revoke diplomatic relation with India expel Indian ambassador from Pretoria and recall our Ambassador from New Delhi. Redeem our conscience. Restore our moral voice.

I thank you in advance for your kind consideration and solidarity.

Let South Africa stand — as it once did — on the right side of history. Aluta Continua

Sincerely Yours,

In Struggle

Salman Khan. Paul Harris Fellow, T.I

Chairman SAKAG & KCAU

South African Kashmir Action Group

Kashmir Centre for African Union

Excecutive member Kashmir Diaspora Coalition KDC