Beant killer Jagtar Hawara escapes the gallows

The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) commuted on Tuesday the death sentence of Jagtar Singh Hawara, a Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) militant, to life imprisonment “till death” in the sensational Beant Singh assassination case.

The high court, however, upheld the sentence of another BKI terrorist Balwant Singh, who was also awarded death with Hawara by a special court in July 2007 after an 11-year trial, and confirmed the life sentences of three others — Shamsher Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Lakhwinder Singh — convicted of conspiring to assassinate Beant.

The 73-year-old then chief minister was killed with 17 others in a bomb blast at the entrance of the 10-storey state secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.

While Hawara was the mastermind of the assassination, Balwant was the second human bomb to be used in case the first — Dilawar Singh — failed. He, however, claimed during the entire trial that he alone was responsible for the killing.

Naseeb Singh, the sixth person convicted in the case under the Explosives Act, was awarded 10 years. He may be released soon since he has already completed the sentence during the trial. The seventh accused, Navjot Singh, was acquitted by the special court.

Justifying relief to Hawara, HC said his was a “borderline case for capital punishment”.
—(With PTI inputs)