Blood money of Rs 2 crore paid, Balwinder Singh's family still awaits his return from Saudi Arabia

Tribune News Service

Archit Watts

Muktsar, November 14

Even five months after paying blood money of Rs 2 crore to the Saudi Arabian government, the family of 35-year-old Balwinder Singh, a landless man from Mallan village here, is still waiting for his safe return from the Gulf country.

Balwinder was held guilty of killing a resident of Saudi Arabia in 2013. He had gone there to work in 2008 and was involved in a brawl in which a man lost his life.

Balwinder’s family collected Rs 2 crore as donation from some Good Samaritans and paid the blood money through the Central government in May. The family claims that the money was accepted by a Saudi Arabian court in June and Balwinder was then released from a jail in Riyadh and shifted to some other jail.

Hardeep Singh, a cousin of Balwinder, today said, “There was a dispute between a Punjabi youth and a Saudi Arabian man in 2013. Balwinder was just intervening, but the Saudi Arabian resident tried to kill him with a knife. In his self-defence, Balwinder hit him back with a stick. The man lost his life after four days of hospitalisation. Balwinder was first awarded imprisonment for seven years. Thereafter, a court there told him to pay blood money of Rs 2 crore to the deceased’s family or face beheading. We somehow managed to collect such a huge amount and paid it. However, Balwinder is still not being released.”

Jagdev Singh, a maternal uncle of Balwinder, who hails from Patiala, said, “We have had telephonic conversations with officials in the Indian Embassy there. Earlier, a Punjabi man was assisting us but now he has been transferred and we are not getting a satisfactory reply from anyone. We have now lodged a complaint with the Ministry of External Affairs and approached some people having good relations in other countries too.”

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