Sentence review board defers decision over Bhullar release

The demand by Sikh groups for Bhullar’s release had gained ground ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab.

New Delhi: The sentence review board (SRB) headed by Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday deferred the decision on the early release of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a 1993 Delhi bomb blast case convict who is currently lodged in Amritsar jail.

The sentence review board (SRB) headed by Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday deferred the decision on the early release of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a 1993 Delhi bomb blast case convict who is currently lodged in Amritsar jail.

The matter has been put off till the next SRB meeting, said a Delhi government official.

The demand by Sikh groups for Bhullar’s release had gained ground ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab.

The seven members of the board include the director general of Tihar prison, secretaries of home and law departments and director of social welfare department of the Delhi government, a district judge and a senior Delhi Police officer.

Bhullar was convicted in connection with the killing of nine people and injuring of 31 in a bomb blast in 1993 in Delhi. Among those who survived the attack is former Youth Congress chief MS Bitta.

Bhullar was sentenced to death by a designated TADA court on August 25, 2001.

He is undergoing life imprisonment after the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence.

He was shifted to Amritsar Central Jail from Delhi’s Tihar Jail on health grounds, in June 2015.

Former Punjab chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal had recently sought the immediate release of Bhullar in the “larger interest of consolidating peace and communal harmony” in Punjab. He had accused the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi of obstructing his release.

However, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had hit back, saying, “It is a sensitive issue and the SAD is doing dirty politics over it. We strongly condemn it.”