The home ministry, in a letter to the Punjab government, stated that the execution of 44-year-old Rajoana, scheduled to be carried out on March 31.
The hanging of Babbar Khalsa terrorist Balwant Singh Rajoana, assassin of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, was on Wednesday stayed by the Centre following a mercy petition by top Sikh religious body SGPC to president Pratibha Patil.
The home ministry, in a letter to the Punjab government, stated that the execution of 44-year-old Rajoana, scheduled to be carried out on March 31 as per the Chandigarh Sessions Court order, has been stayed. The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee had moved the petition under Article 72 of the Constitution for grant of clemency to Rajoana.
The home ministry order came soon after Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal met president Patil and sought her intervention to secure clemency for Rajoana in the interest of peace and communal harmony in the state as also national interest.
Earlier, normal life in Punjab was paralysed in many cities as complete bandh was observed on Wednesday in support of Balwant Singh who has been ordered to be hanged on March 31 in the Patiala central jail.
At about half a dozen places demonstrators clashed with police, but no untoward incident took place. More than 30,000 paramilitary and state police personnel were deployed in the state amid reports that radicals might resort to violence to express their solidarity with the convict. Skirmishes between Sikh protesters and right-wing Hindu activists took place at Jalandhar and Patiala today during the day-long bandh called by radicals in support of Rajoana. Sikh protesters stopped the Shane-e-Punjab express train near a crossing close to Jalandhar, police said.
Chief minister Badal, meanwhile, reiterated that peace and communal harmony would be maintained at all cost and warned all those trying to take advantage of the situation. “We assure the people of the nation that law and order will be maintained at any cost...Anyone who tries to disturb the peace and communal harmony in the state will be handled properly,” he said.
The hanging of Rajoana had taken a political turn with the ruling Akali Dal campaigning hard against his execution while its coalition partner BJP saying the law should take its own course. The Punjab Congress had been in favour of clemency.
— With agency inputs
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