"Hang me from the Red Fort but spare my husband," wailed an indignant Rehmana Yousuf on Monday, when the Special Court convicted her husband and Pakistani Lashkar-e-Tayiba militant Ashfaq of murder and waging war against the nation in the Red Fort shoot-out case.
Rehmana herself was convicted for sheltering Ashfaq, who has been found guilty under sections that attract upto a death sentence.
Additonal Sessions Judge O P Saini was forced to stop the reading of the judgement on several occasions in the face of Rehmana's outburst, as her shocked police escort and lawyer, R N Toufeel, tried to restrain her.
"Innocents are being hanged while the guilty ones go free only because they are Hindustani," she shouted at the judge, while questioning the 'fairness of the order'.
Another accused, Nazir Ahmed, also shouted when his conviction was pronounced. "I'm innocent," he said repeatedly.
Later, he and three other convicts wore placards saying, 'Victims of state terrorism', on their necks as they were being led away and raged in public that the judgement was a 'big shame for India'.
