JOIN USBacked by ruling Akali Dal, the SGPC, apex religious body of Sikhs, will file a clemency appeal before the President for Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is on death row for the 1995 killing of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, even as ally BJP steered clear of the issue.
At a meeting chaired by the SAD president and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Core Committee said this evening that the party was prepared to “go to any extent to secure clemency for Bhai Rajoana so that the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in the state is not disturbed.”
Amid the campaign seeking support for clemency to Rajoana, which has even been endorsed by Beant’s family, the Patiala Central Jail returned his death warrant for the second time in less than a week.
Patiala Jail Superintendent Lakhwinder Singh Jakhar, who had returned the warrant for execution of Rojana last evening, informed Additional Sessions Judge Shalini Singh Nagpal (Chandigarh) that there were legal infirmities in the procedure followed and Punjab state had no territorial jurisdiction in the matter.
The Core Committee meeting, which deliberated the issue for over two hours and noted that the death warrant had been returned as the sentence could not be carried out in Punjab, asked the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbhandhak Committee to immediately file a clemency appeal for Rajoana before the President of India.
It also asked the Punjab government to take all possible legal and other steps to secure clemency for him, party general secretary Daljeet Singh Cheema said. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who was present at the meeting, said that he would make a special statement on the subject in the assembly on Monday.
Meanwhile, Rajoana has refused the title of ‘Zinda Shaheed’ (living martyr) bestowed on him by the top temporal seat of Sikhs — the Akal Takht— and said he will prefer to be hanged.
The SAD Core Committee appealed to all political parties, organisations and citizens to extend support for the cause of clemency for Rajoana, who is scheduled to be hanged in Patiala Central Jail on March 31, to maintain peace and communal harmony in the state and the country.
However, SAD ally BJP was evasive on the issue of supporting clemency for Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa terrorist. “It is for the courts to decide and nobody has a right to to interfere,” Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma told reporters.
A special CBI court had awarded death sentence to Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara in the Beant Singh case on August 1, 2007. Three others — Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh — were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching the conspiracy to kill Beant Singh.