After seeking clemency for Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is on death row in the Beant Singh assassination case, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal have demanded that death sentence awarded to Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast case be commuted to life term.
The chief minister said on Sunday that he would meet president Pranab Mukherjee and prime minister Manmohan Singh to make an appeal for the purpose because Bhullar’s execution could result in serious law and order problems in the state.
Meanwhile, security has been stepped up across the Punjab in the wake of uneasy calm among the radicals after the Supreme Court rejected Bhullar’s plea to commute his death sentence.
Radical groups, including the Damdami Taksal, have decided to take out march from Fatehgarh Sahib on April 18 in favour of clemency to Bhullar.
Incidentally, for Rajoana also, the state government had assumed a similar stance even as Rajoana reaffirmed that he did not favour clemency.
The Congress party seems to be furious over the decision. Senior Congress leader Sukhpal Khaira questioned the chief minister for his stance on Bhullar after the state government had submitted in a case in the Punjab and Haryana high court that Bhullar was a dreaded terrorist.
He wondered whether the state government would keep opposing death punishment to terrorists for fear of law and order trouble.
In all, 11 persons from the state, including Rajoana, are on death row, even as the state has no hangman on its rolls. All of them have their appeals for clemency pending before the President.
News Source: DNA INDIA
