Balwant Singh Rajoana, a loss of life row convict within the case of the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, reached his native village of Rajoana Kalan within the Ludhiana district of Punjab on Wednesday to attend the bhog ceremony (prayer meet after the funeral) of his brother Kulwant Singh Rajoana. This was after the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket granted him parole for 3 hours to attend the occasion following Kulwant Singh’s loss of life.
Rajoana has been lodged in jail for over 28 years since his arrest in December 1995. He’s now looking for the commutation of his loss of life sentence on the grounds of “extraordinary” and “inordinate delay” in deciding his mercy petition by the President. The hearings on the plea are presently ongoing within the Supreme Court docket, with the subsequent listening to scheduled for November 25.
Rajoana was taken from Patiala Central Jail to Gurdwara Manji Sahib at his native village amid tight safety by the Patiala police. The Ludhiana rural police additionally deployed heavy safety within the village the place Rajoana will keep for 3 hours.
Varinder Singh Khosa, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Dakha, stated, “The Patiala police group has introduced him from the jail and can take him again after three hours. We have now additionally deployed ample safety within the village and the gurdwara.”
Earlier, on January 31, 2022, Rajoana got here out on parole for an hour to attend the bhog ceremony of his adoptive father Jaswant Singh, held at Gurdwara Baba Deep Singh in Ludhiana. Since that was being held forward of the Punjab Meeting polls, Rajoana addressed the attendees and appealed to them to vote in favour of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
Rajoana was adopted by Jaswant Singh in 1993 after his personal father Malkeet Singh had handed away. Rajoana was a police constable who had joined the Punjab Police on October 1, 1987. At the moment lodged in Patiala Central Jail, he was allegedly sympathetic to the views of Babbar Khalsa Worldwide. He justified Beant Singh’s assassination, blaming the previous chief minister for “extra-judicial” killings of a number of Sikh youths.
Convicted for the August 31, 1995, assassination of Beant Singh and 12 others in Chandigarh, Rajoana was sentenced to loss of life in 2007 by a particular court docket of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) filed a mercy petition on his behalf in March 2012.
In September 2019, the Ministry of Residence Affairs (MHA) wrote to Punjab proposing commutation of his loss of life sentence into life imprisonment to commemorate the 550th start anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, however the proposal was by no means carried out.
On the event of the commemoration of the 550th start anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, the Centre in September 2019 advisable processing the case of Rajoana for commutation of the loss of life sentence below Part 72 of the Structure (below which the President is empowered to commute the loss of life sentence). A correspondence to this impact was despatched to respective States/UT in September 2019 by the MHA.
Nevertheless, in December 2019, Union Residence Minister Amit Shah said within the Lok Sabha that no pardon had been granted to Rajoana after former Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, grandson of former CM Beant Singh, throughout the Query Hour sought a response from Shah as to why “Rajoana was pardoned”.
Since then, an enchantment has been filed by Rajoana and is pending within the Supreme Court docket. Ravneet Singh Bittu, now BJP chief and Union minister, stated he has no objection if the Centre decides to pardon Rajoana and different “Bandi Singhs” (Sikh prisoners) imprisoned for years.
