The noose is off Balwant Singh Rajoana’s neck. Twenty-four years after he assassinated Punjab’s former Chief Minister Beant Singh and more than seven years after stay on his execution, the Centre on Sunday announced to commute the death sentence of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) terrorist to life imprisonment.
To commemorate Sikhs’ first master Guru Nanak Dev’s 550th birth anniversary, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had announced to release “pre-maturely” eight Sikh prisoners through special remission, besides commuting the death sentence of one.
However, the MHA’s decision to commutate Rajoana’s sentence will require concurrence from the President. The process has been set in motion according to senior Government officials who are aware of the details but did not want to be named.
Rajoana, the prime conspirators in Beant Singh assassination case, was awarded death sentence by Chandigarh Sessions Court on July 31, 2007, and confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on October 12, 2010.
Facing gallows for annihilating the then Chief Minister on August 31, 1995, in a bomb blast at Punjab Civil Secretariat that claimed about 17 lives, Rajoana was “second” human bomb in case Dilawar Singh — the human bomb — failed to complete the task.
Rajoana’s death sentence has, since long, been in a state of suspended animation as a plea seeking his mercy, filed by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), was lying pending with the President.
Escaping a death by a whisker, Rajoana was to be hanged on March 31, 2012.
Even as the ‘condemned man’ wanted the death warrants to be executed and resisting any sort of clemency, the SAD-BJP led State Government, SGPC, Sikh organisations and others left no stone unturned to secure life for him in 2012.
At that time, the “Save Rajoana” campaign reached every Sikh’s house, that eventually proved fortunate for him with the Union Home Ministry staying his execution — just three days before his execution date — after the SGPC’s filed clemency appeal on March 28, with the President.
Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has all along been admitting for eliminating the then Chief Minister and clamouring for the execution of the death sentence, had been conferred with the title of ‘Zinda Shaheed’ (a living martyr) by the Akal Takht — Sikhs’ highest temporal seat. The move was not opposed by the SAD-led Punjab Government.
Earlier in October 2010, the death sentence of another convict in Beant Singh assassination case, Jagtar Singh Hawara, was reduced to life imprisonment by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The same court had, however, upheld Rajoana’s death sentence.
