Patiala, Oct 14: A delegation of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), led by its president Harjinder Singh Dhami, met death-row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana at Patiala Central Jail on Tuesday to discuss matters related to his long-pending mercy petition.
According to sources, the closed-door meeting lasted nearly an hour, during which several issues concerning Rajoana’s case and the status of his mercy plea before the Centre were taken up in detail. “The SGPC has been pursuing this matter consistently, and the meeting was part of that ongoing process,” a source familiar with the discussion said.
After the meeting, Dhami left in his cavalcade without interacting with journalists who had gathered outside the jail. The visit followed a recent request from the SGPC secretary to the additional director general of police (jails) seeking permission to meet the death-row convict.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s recent observation that the Centre alone bears responsibility for the prolonged delay in deciding on Rajoana’s mercy plea. The apex court reiterated that it is for the executive, not the judiciary, to take a call on carrying out the execution.
Rajoana, a former Punjab Police constable and Babbar Khalsa sympathiser, was sentenced to death in 2007 for his role in the 1995 suicide bomb attack outside the Punjab Civil Secretariat that killed then Chief Minister Beant Singh and 16 others. His execution, initially set for March 31, 2012, was stayed three days prior by the UPA government after the SGPC filed a mercy petition on his behalf.
Since then, the plea has remained pending before the Union government, with Sikh bodies repeatedly urging its early resolution.
