Five police personnel, undergoing life sentence for offences committed during militancy in Punjab, will be released from jails as the Centre has approved the State Government’s proposal for the same.
The decision came a fortnight after the Union Home Ministry decided to release eight Sikh prisoners, lodged in different jails across the country for committing crimes during the militancy in Punjab.
“The Government of India has accepted the request of the Government of Punjab for grant of special remission and release of five Punjab Police personnel undergoing sentence in different jails in Punjab for offences committed during militancy period in Punjab,” said a Union Home Ministry official.
Welcoming the Centre’s decision to release these cops on humanitarian grounds, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh thanked the Union Home Minister Amit Shah while hoping that the Central Government would also give due cognizance to favourably consider his plea to release other cops whose release he had sought last month on humanitarian grounds.
Granting special remission and release of five of the around 20 personnel, the Union Home Minister has termed it a decision motivated by humanitarian and compassionate consideration.
Notably, Capt Amarinder had written to Shah in September seeking the release of about 20 police personnel, pointing out that these men had acted while fighting terrorism, sponsored from across the border, in the interest of Punjab and the country.
Some of these police personnel were, in fact, suffering from serious or terminal illnesses and deserved the Centre’s mercy, he added, pointing out that these men risked their lives during the dark days of terrorism for the nation, without any personal vested interest.
Most of the men whose release had been sought by the Chief Minister are now at advanced ages.
The Chief Minister had further pointed out that around 1800 police officers of various ranks sacrificed themselves during the terrorism days, while fighting proxy war with terrorists to protect the unity and integrity of the country.
KHAIRA CONDEMNS THE MOVE
Strongly condemning the Centre’s decision to release five Punjab police personnel as “the blatant violation of natural justice and shielding of killer police officers”, Bholath MLA and Punjab Ekta Party president Sukhpal Khaira on Monday said that this was nothing but “making mockery of our judicial system by overriding its decisions after decades of struggle for justice by aggrieved families of victims”.
Khaira, in a hard hitting statement, said: “I’m sure these police officers have killed innocent person or persons in fake encounter. I hope it’s not the killers of Jaswant Singh Khalra whose wife and Khalra Mission fought for 25 years to bring culprits to justice. This is nothing but a police state now.”
“In other words, it’s a message to killers in uniform that go ahead eliminate innocents in fake encounters and extra judicial killings, we (Govt) will take care of you. This is the new definition of human rights in Punjab,” he said.
Khaira said that first Badal-Capt combine illegitimately released four Uttar Pradesh killer cops convicted for the fake encounter of a Dalit Sikh boy Harjit Singh of Saharan Majra village of Ludhiana whose family fought for 20 years in a Patiala CBI Court for their conviction, and now five more killers to be set free. “Shame on our criminal justice system,” he said.