Beant grandson demands Rajoana, Bhullar be hanged

Former Punjab chief minister's Beant Singh's grandson and Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu on Tuesday demanded that Balwant Singh Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa International terrorist, who is on death row for the former CM's assassination, be hanged. This, when other family members of Beant Singh had favoured clemency for Rajoana.

"Both Rajoana and Delhi blast convict Devinder Pal Bhullar should be hanged as soon as possible by the government," Bittu told The Indian Express over phone from New Delhi.

"No political party should interfere in the process of law and the guilty must be punished as per law. For the peace and harmony of the state, political parties must stay away from the process of law in cases of Rajoana and Bhullar," he added.

When informed about Bittu's statement, his aunt and former Congress minister Gurkanwal Kaur — the daughter of Beant Singh — initially refused to comment. She later said: "When we had favoured clemency for Rajoana, at that time, the situation was different." When asked how the situation was different, Kaur refused to comment.

Earlier, Kaur had said that to maintain peace and to end the vicious cycle of bitterness, Rajoana's death sentence should be commuted. "It is my personal opinion that Rajoana should be pardoned on humanitarian grounds. It will be a very good thing," Gurkanwal had told the media in May last year.

Beant Singh's other grandson and Congress MLA, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, had also said last year that "the family has no objection to Rajoana being granted clemency".

Beant Singh was assassinated by a human bomb, Dilawar Singh, at the high security Punjab Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31,1995. While another terrorist, Jagtar Singh Hawara, was the mastermind of the assassination, Rajoana was the second human bomb to be used in case the first assassin failed to kill Singh.

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