NEW DELHI: Controversy has dogged the hanging of a right wing Sikh militant in India, who has been accused of killing a then chief minister in Punjab, a northern Indian state, which was plagued with terrorism for over a decade. The hanging of Balwinder Singh Rajoana on March 31 as ordered by a trial court has hit several religious as well political as well as roadblocks. To begin with Rajoana, who was sentenced to death for blowing up then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh car in 1995, has been anointed as a ‘zinda shaheed' or a ‘living saint' by the ‘Akal takht' the highest temporal seat of Sikhs across the world. The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), a powerful apex organization of the small, but influential Sikh community in India has also sent a mercy petition to the President of India seeking life imprisonment for Rajoana, instead of death by hanging. The ruling party in Punjab, the Akali Dal, a strong advocate of Sikhism, has openly come out in favor of the Rajoana, who claimed to have killed Congress chief minister Beant Singh because of the killing and persecution of Sikh's under his regime. The Akali Dal-led Punjab government has now filed an appeal in a higher court to stop the March 31 hanging of Rajoana. Even as the Chandigarh sessions court Tuesday ordered the local prison authorities to comply with its “death by hanging” order, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss ways of commuting the sentence. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/iiDDf Tags: Death Sentence, India, Murder, Punjab, Rajoana, Sikh Section: Human Rights, Latest News, South Asia
