SGPC delegation meets Balwant Singh Rajoana in Patiala jail

A SGPC delegation led by its president Harjinder Singh Dhami on Tuesday met death-row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana inside the Central Patiala Jail.

Sources say a number of issues pertaining to Rajoana and his mercy petition, which is pending with the Centre, were discussed in detail.

After the meeting, which was held for almost an hour, Dhami left in his cavalcade without talking to the waiting media.

The meeting comes almost 10 days after the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) secretary had written to the additional director general of police (jails) seeking an appointment to meet death-row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana.

Last month, the Supreme Court, during a hearing, observed that the Centre alone was responsible for the delay in taking a decision on Rajoana's mercy petition, a Babbar Khalsa sympathiser on death row for the 1995 assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.

The court reminded the government that it was for the executive, not the court, to take a call on his execution. Rajoana, a former Punjab Police constable, was sentenced to death in July 2007 for his role in the 1995 bomb attack outside the Punjab civil secretariat that killed Beant Singh and 16 others.

After the High Court confirmed the punishment, his execution was scheduled for March 31, 2012, but was stayed three days earlier by the then UPA government following a mercy petition filed by the SGPC.