Balwant Singh Rajoana, a convict on death row in connection with the assassination of Punjab’s former Chief Minister Beant Singh, has said that he did not want anyone to defend him.
His statement came in response to the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)
president and former IPS officer Simranjit Singh Mann’s recent plea seeking stay on Rajoana’s hanging.
“I do not need Mann or need any sympathy from any other Congress agent,” Rajoana said in a letter purported to have been written by him and released by his sister Kamaldeep Kaur.
In his letter which was addressed to the Sikh community, Balwant Singh Rajoana said that he has no relations with Mann.
Rajoana said Mann should not worry about his (Rajoana’s) body which he had already donated to a hospital.
Rajoana was a party to the assassination of Beant Singh and 16 others killed by a human bomb at Punjab Civil Secretariat on August 31, 1995. Rajoana was sentenced to death in 2006.
Balwant Singh Rajoana’s hanging was scheduled to take place on March 31, 2012, but was postponed in the wake of a review petition moved before the President by the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal). Rajoana’s mercy petition is pending with the President.