Ahead of poll, issue of Sikh prisoners' release gains prominence

Aparna Banerji

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Jalandhar, February 2

Fierce protests by Sikh groups on the issue of release of Sikh prisoners – most prominently Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar – have taken prominence as a key issue ahead of the Assembly elections.

While Sikh groups claim that the legal barriers preventing his release have been lifted, questions are being raised as to why his release is still not being cleared.

The fierce protests on the issue have been directed at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has repeatedly faced questions and protests on the issue. Besides Kejriwal, Union Minister Som Parkash has also faced similar protests and had written to Home Minister Amit Shah on the release of Sikh prisoners.

When did protests happen?

On January 28, Sikh groups blocked the Jalandhar-Phagwara highway for two hours in protest against Union Minister Som Parkash’s refusal to meet them. While protesters had planned a march up to the minister’s residence, they were stopped mid way and it was decided that a delegation will meet him. However, protests erupted again on the minister’s refusal to meet the activists.

On January 29, few protesters sat down outside the hotel where AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal was staying in Jalandhar. They protested against his refusal to meet them.

On January 30, Kejriwal again faced protests on the issue in Amritsar with protestors demanding the release of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar. In subsequent press conferences over the course of two days, Kejriwal admitted he knew little about the issue, but enquired and got to know about it in detail after it was repeatedly raised.

The issue

Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar was convicted in connection with the killing of nine persons and injuring 31 in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast case. In jail since 1994, there had been several appeals, also by his family, for the commutation of his death sentence. Subsequently, a campaign by Sikh bodies began gaining support. In 2015, his death sentence was commuted to life term by the Supreme Court. In 2019, on the 550th Parkash Utsav of Guru Nanak Dev, he and seven more Sikh prisoners were granted release by the Centre. While the Centre asked respective governments to carry out the process, the matter of Bhullar’s release was still pending with the Sentence Review Board of the Delhi Government.

Activist Sukhdev Singh Phagwara, a member of the Alliance of Sikh Organisations, said, “When Bhullar has already served his prison sentence, the delay in the orders of his release is what raises questions. The Sentence Review Board (SRB) of Delhi is headed by state’s Home Minister Satyendra Jain. The SRB has already rejected the plea for Bhullar’s release four times. It was rejected in 2019, in February 2020, August 28, 2020, and on December 11, 2020. While Bhagwant Mann had said the file hadn’t been cleared by SRB, Kejriwal has said he would ask his home secretary to speed up the procedure. This ambiguity is also questionable.”

Future protest

The Sikh groups who held a protest at Phagwara on January 28 had given a call for a special meeting in Jalandhar on February 4. On the call of the Bharti Kisan Union Doaba, Dal Khalsa and Alliance of Sikh Organisations as well as Akal Students Federation, a special meeting of Punjab’s panthic organisations, farmers unions and religious leaders will be held at the Gurdwara Nauvi Patshahi at Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar, Jalandhar, on February 4. During the meeting, the future course of the agitation will be announced.