Beant Singh, the Punjab chief minister who was assassinated
A video message circulated by Gurpatwant Pannun, he equated Beant Singh's regime to that of the current dispensation under AAP CM Bhagwant Mann
A death threat issued earlier in the week by US-based Khalistan ideologue Gurpatwant Singh Pannun to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, comparing his regime to that of former CM Beant Singh, has shone the spotlight on what led to Singh's assassination by a suicide bomber.
On August 31, 1995, the day he was killed, Singh was heading out to sign some papers. As he stepped into his official car, a white ambassador, Dilawar Singh Babbar, a Punjab policeman, detonated the bomb strapped to him. Seventeen people, including members of Beant Singh's staff and security, died in the attack.
On Tuesday, a video message circulated by radical Khalistani leader Pannun referred to Beant Singh’s assassination, equating the regime under him to that of the present dispensation in Punjab under Mann, who belongs to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). This is the latest in a spree of death threats issued by the Sikhs for Justice founder and designated terrorist Pannun, who previously threatened to attack Parliament on or before December 13, 2023, the anniversary of the 2001 Parliament attacks.
Turbulent events that led to the assassination of Beant Singh
In the anti-Sikh riots, sparked after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, 3,340 Sikhs were killed as per government figures. During the subsequent days of turmoil in the 1990s, a bloody cycle of violence was sparked as a number of state police officers were killed by Sikh militants as a form of retaliation for the perceived role of police officers in the killings of Sikhs and militants.
Due to the atmosphere of fear that loomed over Punjab in the years of militancy, the state was placed under the President’s Rule from 1987 to 1992. In 1992, elections were held in Punjab. Despite the Centre deploying substantial police and paramilitary forces, only 24% of the electorate turned up to vote due to the prevailing atmosphere of fear.
The assassination of Beant Singh took place three years after he took over as CM in 1992. The Congress leader rose to power at a time when Punjab was inching towards normalcy after a decade-long storm of terrorism that had changed the socio-religious and political contours of the state.
Beant Singh's government gave the state police, under director general KPS Gill, a carte blanche to vanquish terrorist modules. Many terrorists were eliminated, and a large number fled the country to North America, Canada, the United Kingdom and other European nations.
In retaliation, a conspiracy to eliminate the chief minister was hatched in England by the radical organisation Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), led by Wadhawa Singh. The leaders of BKI motivated a group of youngsters to assassinate the then CM.
Investigating authorities accused 15 people in the suicide bomb blast that occurred outside the Punjab secretariat. Of them, Jagtar Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh Rajoana were awarded the death penalty; Gurmeet Singh, Lakhwinder Singh, and Shamsher Singh were given life imprisonment. Two, Navjot Singh and Naseeb Singh, were acquitted by the trial court.
Political tussle to free the accused
Sikh protestors under the banner of Quami Insaaf Morcha have been protesting for over a year on the outskirts of Chandigarh seeking the release of these convicts, on the grounds of their 'good conduct'.
The demand for the release of Rajoana, a former state police constable and the backup bomber to Babbar, has sparked a political slugfest as Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) called for him to be released, based on the grounds of the release of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins. The Congress has reacted sharply against the request.
In May last year, the Supreme Court declined to commute the death penalty of Rajoana, who has been in jail for 27 years and was sentenced to death by a CBI court in July 2007 for his involvement in the assassination.
His execution was stayed after a decision by the home ministry in 2012, following appeals by the Sikhs apex body - Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) – the body responsible for managing gurdwaras in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh -- in which SAD has a majority.
Rajoana had moved a plea before the SC in 2020, claiming that a decision to commute his death penalty had been announced in the media in 2019 by the Centre as part of the 550th Prakash Parv of Guru Nanak (celebrated on Guru Nanak's 550th birth anniversary), but he had not been granted any relief. The Union home minister had made a statement in Parliament at the time, explaining that no such decision to commute Rajoana's sentence had been taken.
Meanwhile, Hawara, currently lodged in Tihar jail serving a life sentence, was declared jathedar (head priest) of Akal Takht – the highest temporal seat of Sikhs by a sarbat khalsa (Sikhs congregation) in Amritsar in 2015. The declaration by the sarbat khalsa awaits recognition from the SGPC.
Hawara, too, was sentenced to the death penalty in 2007 and appealed before the Punjab and Haryana high court, which converted his death penalty to life imprisonment in October 2010. He had further appealed for release in the Supreme Court, where his case is currently pending.
Jagtar Singh Tara, who was arrested in 1995, is also undergoing life imprisonment in undergoing life sentence in Chandigarh’s Burail jail.
Recommended Topics