Balwant Singh Rajoana

Chandigarh, March 27: The re-elected Akali Dal government was tonight grappling with a sensitive issue after a court refused to halt the weekend execution of a convict in the Beant Singh assassination case and the accused insisted he did not want the mercy of the ruling party.

Late this evening, an NGO moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the execution.

Punjab police and paramilitary forces have carried out flag marches across the state fearing violence if Balwant Singh Rajoana, the alleged back-up human bomb in the team that blew up the then chief minister and 17 others in 1995, was hanged as scheduled on Saturday.

The security forces have gone on high alert because various organisations have given a bandh call in Punjab tomorrow.

Rajoana, who has neither challenged his conviction nor filed any mercy petition although Beant Singh’s relatives had forgiven him, asked the Akalis in a letter not to save him and claimed that they were pushing for a pardon out of fear of losing support in Punjab.

The unusual situation has arisen after neither the state government nor the Centre wants to stoke the embers of the 1980s by carrying out the execution. The Punjab government feels that since the assassination took place in Chandigarh, a Union territory, the state administration has no jurisdiction to carry out the death sentence.

The superintendent of the jail in which Rajoana is lodged cited technical grounds and pleaded inability to carry out the death sentence. However, a Chandigarh court today iterated that Rajoana be hanged at 9am on March 31.

Chief minister Beant Singh was assassinated by a human bomb, Dilawar Singh, just outside the Punjab secretariat on August 31, 1995. Rajoana was to serve as a back-up bomb in case Dilawar failed.

Now in his forties, Rajoana was a constable and was posted in Beant Singh’s inner security ring as a gunman. He belongs to Rajoana village in Ludhiana district. Ironically, his father Malkit Singh was allegedly killed by pro-Khalistan militants in 1991.

Today’s order followed a petition of the superintendent of the Patiala Central Jail, Lakhwinder Singh Jhakkar, to the additional district and sessions judge, Shalini S. Nagpal. The court also issued show caused Jakhar for contempt for returning the execution order.

Jakhar submitted in court that he was “unable and disabled in law” to accept Rajoana’s death warrant and he was approaching the next higher court.

Jakhar said the Supreme Court had laid down guidelines that before the execution, the jail superintendent should ascertain personally whether the death sentence imposed on any of the co-accused of the prisoner has been commuted. If it has been commuted, the superintendent should apprise the superior authorities who must take prompt steps for bringing the matter to the notice of the courts concerned, he added.

Jakhar said the appeal of co-accused Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha was pending and it was necessary to await the outcome of the matter in the Supreme Court.

Jakhar had originally returned the death warrant to the court stating that the state of Punjab had no jurisdiction to execute the sentence since the offence had taken place within the jurisdiction of Chandigarh, a Union territory, and the conviction and sentence was also passed by the Chandigarh additional and sessions judge.

“It is also possible that Rajoana changes his mind and files appeal or mercy petition. It is, therefore, necessary that the law completes its final course before executing the death sentence,” Jakhar had submitted.

Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara, the alleged mastermind, were awarded the death sentence. Hawara’s death sentence was commuted to life by Punjab and Haryana High Court. The appeal of another co-accused, Lakhwinder Singh, is pending before the Supreme Court.

Lakha, who was awarded life imprisonment, has pleaded for acquittal whereas the CBI has filed a petition to convert the life imprisonment of Hawara to capital punishment.

The assassinated chief minister’s family has forgiven Rajoana and would like his death sentence to be converted to life imprisonment. “We want peace to remain in Punjab,” Beant Singh’s grandson Gurkirat said.

Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh, too, has welcomed the government’s decision to approach the Prime Minister and the President seeking clemency for Rajoana.

In a letter released from prison, Rajoana criticised the Shiromani Akali Dal as a party that has failed to get justice for Sikhs who were killed in the 1984 riots that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination.“I want to die a martyr for the Sikhs. They should not bow to Delhi who did nothing to get justice for the Sikhs who died in the 1984 riots and they should not now bow to them to save me from the gallows,” Rajoana said in the letter, the copies of which were distributed by his foster sister Kamaldeep Kaur outside the jail.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the apex religious body of Sikhs, has sent a petition to the President seeking clemency for Rajoana.

Union law minister Salman Khurshid said neither the Centre nor the state government “can do anything outside the system”.