Baishaki amnesty to prisoners in Punjab

CHANDIGARH: Granting an amnesty on the occasion of the Baisakhi festival on Friday, the Punjab government on Thursday remitted the sentences of those convicted by trial courts within the criminal jurisdiction of the state.

Prisoners sentenced to more than 10 years and upto to 20 years have been granted a year's remission while those undergoing terms of 5 to 10 years, 2 to 5 years and 2 years were given pardons of 9 months, 6 months and 3 months respectively, an official spokesman said here.

He said the Baisakhi amnesty would, however, not be admissible in cases where death sentences had been commuted to life terms, culpable homicide with wrongful confinement for extortion, culpable homicide with rape.

Those convicted of murders or double murders involving "extreme brutality" and sentenced to life imprisonment, crimes connected with terrorism in the state and offences relating to dowry deaths would also be out of the amnesty's ambit, he said.

All foreign nationals, detenues of any class of prisoners undergoing sentence in default of payment of fine and persons convicted for an offence under any state or Central Act which bars the grant of remission, were also not entitled for this special remission.