LS-SHAH-RAJOANA

No pardon has been given to Balwant Singh Rajoana: Amit Shah
New Delhi, Dec 3 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on
Tuesday told the Lok Sabha that no pardon has been given to
Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted for the assassination
of the then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995.
During the Question Hour, Congress member from Punjab
Ravneet Singh Bittu sought a response from Shah on why Rajoana
was pardoned.
    Bittu is the grandson of Beant Singh.
    Asking the member not to go by media reports, the home
minister said, "koi maafi ki nahi gayi (no pardon has been
given)".
    In September, the Union Home Ministry officials had
announced the central government's decision to commute the
death sentence of Rajoana to life imprisonment.
    The decision was taken as a "humanitarian gesture" on the
occasion of 550th birth celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev, the
officials had said.
    Rajoana, a former Punjab Police constable, was convicted
for his involvement in an explosion outside the Punjab civil
secretariat that killed Beant Singh and 16 others in 1995.
    The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which is part of the
Narendra     Modi government, had said the decision of
commutation of death sentence would go a long way in assuaging
the "hurt" feelings of the Sikh community who had to go
through "unspeakable repression and humiliation during those
dark days" when Punjab was pushed into terrorism.
    Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal is the SAD
representative in the Union Cabinet.
    While announcing the commutation of Rajoana's death
sentence, the home ministry had said eight other Sikh
prisoners, lodged in different jails in the country for
committing crimes during the militancy in Punjab, would also
be released by the government on the occasion of the birth
anniversary of Shri Guru Nanak Devji as a humanitarian
gesture.
    A special court had in July 2007 awarded the death
sentence to Rajoana, along with another terrorist Jagtar Singh
Hawara, in the Beant Singh assassination case.
    Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa terrorist was the second human
bomb in case the first one would have failed in killing the
Congress leader.
    Rajoana was scheduled to be hanged on March 31, 2012.
    However, the execution was stayed on March 28, 2012, by
the then UPA government at the Centre after Shiromoni
Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee, the Sikh religious body, filed
a mercy petition.
    The Shiromani Akali Dal, which was then in power in
Punjab, campaigned against his execution.
    The President had forwarded the plea to the Home Ministry
to take a call on it. Since then the petition was pending with
the home ministry. PTI RAM ACB
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)