India stays execution of Sikh radical Balwant Singh Rajoana

His execution was stayed pending an appeal made by the state government to the president.


Afp March 28, 2012

NEW DELHI: India has put on hold the execution of a Sikh radical for his role in the assassination of a state chief minister by a suicide bomber in 1995, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Balwant Singh Rajoana was scheduled to be hanged on Saturday at Patiala Jail in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab, but his execution was stayed pending an appeal made by the state government to the president.

"The execution has been stayed while the appeal is under consideration with the president," home ministry spokeswoman Ira Joshi told AFP.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal filed the appeal on Wednesday when he met with President Pratibha Patil, as the northern state saw widespread strikes over what would have been the first execution carried out in India since 2004.

Sikh organisations, politicians and rights groups had all called for the sentence to be commuted, although Rajoana himself has made it clear he would not appeal for clemency.

A strike call by Sikh groups and opposition parties saw many businesses shut down for the day across Punjab, while hundreds of protesters wearing saffron turbans gathered at Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Security had been tightened in the state, with 60,000 police personnel and 15 companies of paramilitary forces put on alert, as well as special orders prohibiting large gatherings.

Rajoana was sentenced to death in 2007 for his role in the 1995 assassination of the then Punjab chief minister, Beant Singh, who was killed by a suicide bomber along with 15 other people.

Rajoana had acted as a standby assassin in case the initial attempt failed.

Radical Sikh groups had held Beant Singh responsible for abuses allegedly carried out by security forces in the suppression of a violent Sikh nationalist insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s.

Rights watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had called for Rajoana's execution to be suspended, saying it would mark a major step backwards for India.

Before the execution was stayed, HRW South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly said the move "would merely continue the cycle of killing and retribution between the Sikh community and the Indian state that has long divided communities."

India's last execution in 2004 was of a former security guard who was hanged for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

India has hundreds of condemned convicts awaiting execution, including the killers of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, and Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab - the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

A complex and lengthy appeal process means those given capital punishment often sit on death row for many years.

In most cases the death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.

COMMENTS (2)

Zulu Khosa | 11 years ago | Reply

@wingy ku-c: Denial, denial, denial.....

wingy ku-c | 11 years ago | Reply India has hundreds of condemned convicts awaiting execution, including ......Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab – the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This is a very treasonous and disgusting allegation from the Express Tribune. Please deliver us now with solid and watertight proves that this Indian terrorist is a Pakistani national?
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