By Jagmohan Singh
AMRITSAR: Various Sikh organizations here today submitted memorandum to Jathedar Akal Takht to ask the Punjab Government to pass a resolution to extend general amnesty to Balwant Singh Rajoana scheduled to hang on March 31.
The prominent Sikh leaders who unanimously submitted memorandum before Akal Takhat were former Punjab Education Minister Manjit Singh Calcutta, former MP Dhian Singh Mand, from United Sikh Movement Bhai Surat Singh, from Akali Dal Panch Pardani Bhai JAsbir Singh. Sikh Student Federation president Karnail Singh Peermohammed, from Akali Dal Delhi Balwinder Singh Bhullar, President Shriomani Akali Dal Amritsar President Simranjit Singh Mann besides others.
All Sikh organizations have appealed to Jathedar Akal Takht to take necessary and early steps to issue directions to SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar to do the needful aggressively to save the life of Balwant Singh Rajoana. They said there was lot of anxiety in Sikh community when the news with regard to hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana was flashed in the section of media.
However, Jathedar Akal Takht Gyani Gurbachan Singh said that people from different walks of lives were asked to reach at Teja Singh Samundri known as mini Sikh parliament on March 23, wherein strategy to be announced before the gathering to launch effective efforts to save Rajoana from death gallows.
Jathedar said that on March 23, everybody would be given adequate time to air his views with regard to save the life of Rajoana. Jathedar said that to save the life of Rajoana was not a political issue but certainly it became the matter related to Sikh community.
Punjab’s late chief minister Beant Singh was assassinated on 31 August 1995 at Chandigarh by men militant outfit Babbar Khalsa group. The mastermind that includes Jagtar Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh Rajoana was arrested in December 1995. Both were awarded death sentence by special court of the CBI. While commuting the death sentence of Hawara into life, the high court, however, upheld the death sentence to Balwant Singh, who had not opposed the gallows awarded to him in 2007 after an 11-year-old trial in a special trial court.
Meanwhile,a public interest litigation PIL) was filed in Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday seeking directions for staying of an order passed by Chandigarh additional sessions judge on March 5, 2012, for the execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana in Beant Singh assassination case on March 31. The PIL, filed by an NGO, Lawyer for Human Rights International, in its plea contended that the execution be stayed since judgment vide which the death sentence of Rajoana has been confirmed is under appeal pending in the Supreme Court.
The PIL came up for hearing before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gagoi which rescued from hearing it and referred the plea to another bench for hearing on March 22. Besides this, the PIL also stated that the special leave petition filed by Central Bureau of Investigation against the conviction of Jagtar Singh Hawara, another accused in the same case, had been admitted in the Supreme Court on December 5, 2011 and was pending.
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