India SGPC Chief Says Supreme Court Is Against Minorities, Committed Judicial Murder

[Archived_Member16]

SGPC chief says Supreme Court is against minorities, committed judicial murder

Navjeevan Gopal - Fri Apr 12 2013, 15:08 hrs

Amritsar : Expressing resentment over the Supreme Court dismissing the mercy plea of death row convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar, the chiefs of temporal seat of Sikhs, Akal Takht, and apex representative body of Sikhs, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), on Friday said they would still explore options to save Bhullar from going to gallows.

"This is judicial murder. I reiterate that there are two sets of laws, a separate one for minorities. On one side death penalty is given to Bhullar on the basis of merely his confessional statement that could be given by anyone under duress and there are no witnesses who give statement against Bhullar, on the other side seven death sentences of a butcher like Kishori Lal, who murdered more than 30 persons with knife, are commuted," said SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar.

SC rejects Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's mercy plea

''... And justice remains awaited in 1984 case where thousands of Sikhs were brutally murdered, women were disgraced, children were also killed and properties worth crores belonging to Sikhs were looted. And this happened in largest democracy of world. That is why I being the representative of a minority community say that there are two sets of laws,'' Makkar said.

''It is very unfortunate that a man who has already served more than 20 years in jail and is mentally unstable is being ordered to be hanged. The Central government should introspect and review the decision. I will go to Delhi to seek legal opinion as to what could be done now to save Bhullar,'' Makkar added.

Akal Takht chief Giani Gurbachan Singh said, ''One cannot be given two punishments, life imprisonment and then death sentence. He (Bhullar) has already been in jail for a long period. And, moreover law prohibits awarding death penalty to a deranged person. I am consulting the matter with SGPC and would direct them to take every legal course to get the execution stopped,'' Singh said.

"After the court order today, there is a wave of sadness among the Sikh community. In a signature campaign to save Bhullar, lakhs of people expressed their solidarity with Bhullar to save him. And those who favoured mercy for Bhullar were not only Sikhs, but Hindus also," Akal Takht chief said, adding, "questioning death penalty saying "one of the judges in three judge bench that had awarded death penalty to Bhullar had acquitted Bhullar" and sentence was awarded on the basis of only his "confessional statement".

Radical Sikh organisation Dal Khalsa termed the dismissal of petition of Bhullar as "shocking and disturbing for people of Punjab in general and Sikh community in particular".

"The decision is travesty of justice as Prof Bhullar is on death row since 18 years. Secondly he was given punishment on the basis of confessional statement taken by police officer under torture. Thirdly, it was a split verdict, Chief Justice acquitted him. Fourthly, he was deported from Germany, where capital punishment is not given," Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwarpal Singh added.

"In the wake of hanging of Afzal Guru, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister taking a jibe at Indian state said in public that the state is selective in the case of death convicts, the Sikhs were apprehending that the next target will be a Sikh. With today's SC decision, our fears might come true," Kanwarpal added.

Meanwhile, Maninderjit Singh Bitta, the then president of Indian Youth Congress who survived the 1993 bomb blast triggered by Bhullar that killed nine persons, welcomed the Supreme Court order dismissing mercy plea of Bhullar.

"I had not expected this. I was thinking that verdict would go in favour of Bhullar. But, I am happy that his plea was dismissed. Now, my next fight is to identify and bring all those to book, who were responsible for withdrawal of my security cover a day ahead of the attack, pushing me in front of terrorists," Bitta told over phone.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sgpc-chief-says-supreme-court-is--agains.../1101474/

 

[spnadmin]

This is put so well that I must wonder what very real outcomes will emerge if the arguments are ignored.

 

[Ikk Khalsa]

SGPC just want to be part of the news; like they really care about what is happening to Sikhs or Sikhi

 

[aristotle]

I, being born outside the dark era of Punjab, could not relate to how deeply the previous generation has been impacted by the wounds of '84 until I saw my Uncle today, he has been crying and praying all morning for clemency of Prof. Bhullar.
For those Hindutva-ish people who advise us Sikhs to 'forget and move on', all I can say is moves like this will only cause further alienation.

 

[SpiritualSingh]

Judiciary was never meant to give justice to people, it was made by East India Company to help Govts rule over people and control them through police.

For those Hindutva-ish people who advise us Sikhs to 'forget and move on', all I can say is moves like this will only cause further alienation.

Our Puppet PM who enjoys dinners and meetings with killers of Sikhs often ask people to forget 84 then what can we expect. Gaddars like Jail Singh, Manmohan, Capt Amarinder, Paramjit Sarna ,Brar, KPS Gill etc makes sure that Sikhs never get justice.

 

[Archived_Member16]

Let’s not hang Bhullar; eye for an eye contrary to Gandhi’s philosophy

Saturday, April, 13 2013 - 13:00

By Our Political Editor-

CHANDIGARH: If hanging Davinderpal Bhullar a death row convict for last 18 years leads to solution of any problem, hang him. Not only does hanging him not solve any problem, but it certainly has the potential of leading to several problems which may be difficult to be confronted, leave aside controlled.

Death is not necessarily the only punishment for any crime howsoever heinous it may be andcertainly not in a civilised nation which follows Gandhi’s philosophy that spelt out that eye for an eye will only end up in blinding the whole world one day.

Supreme Court may be right in asserting that the delay in execution of the death sentence is no reason for commuting it to life. But imagine the plight of the man who is under death sentence for last eighteenyears and how the idea of death would be haunting him continuously.

According to Dr Nimesh Desai, the psychiatrist treating him, he is not responding to any treatment and has been continuously haunted by the idea of death. Rather he has been dying all these years. It isdifficult to understand as how stopping the breath of a man who has been dying every day during all these years will serve the collective conscience of the nation.

Unfortunately some jingoist television anchors are blowing up the issue in such a way that threatens to polarise the people along extremist lines. These anchors sitting in their television studios in far off Mumbai hardly realise what their misplaced and misguided jingoism can lead to. And quite likely they have not an iota of idea that what Punjab went through for ten long years.

Moreover, let this also be cleared that those supporting his mercy petition are only seeking a change in the nature of the punishment. Nobody demands that he be freed. The only demand is that he should notbe killed, if he has not already been dying all these years in the solitary cell.

At the same time the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhik Committee (SGPC) are not trying to put a genuine and sincere defence in his favour and are only playingpolitics. Interpreting the dismissal of his mercy petition by Supreme Court as denial of justice to entire Sikh community is disgusting.

After all the man targeted in the bomb blast, Maninderjit Singh Bitta, the then Indian Youth Congress president, also happens to be a Sikh. Bhullar’s case needs to be viewed dispassionately without taking any sides. He has been convicted for the conspiracy to kill Bitta by masterminding a bomb blast outside his office. Although Bitta survived, nine others died in the bomb blast. Interestingly all other accused in the case like Dayal Singh Lahoria and others, who were charged with being physically present at the time of blast, were acquitted while Bhullar who was not physically present but convicted of conspiracy has been awarded death sentence.

The Supreme Court verdict which upheld the death sentence was a split one as there was no consensus among the judges whether Bhullar deserved to go to the gallows.

Bhullar was the product of his times and also the circumstances. Looking back at Bhullar’s history he was accused of a conspiracy of targeting the then Chandigarh Senior Superintendent of Police. Although Bhullar could not be traced the police allegedly detained his father, who was a teacher and his uncle. The brothers never returned as they disappeared. That time is past. Hanging people like Bhullarmay only end up not only reviving those harsh memories, but even reviving these.

Bhullar’s anger, indignation and a strong sense of alienation is understandable. A young man, particularly at that time, would naturally avenge the disappearance (read cold blooded murder) of his father and the uncle. However, one wrong can never justify the other wrong. If Bhullar tried to seek revenge and target Bitta, who was quite vocal against terrorism, and succeeded in it, he deserves no leniency. But death is not necessarily the only punishment. It is vengeance. He has been punished and has been undergoing the punishment for a long time.

Punishing someone convicted of killing someone with death is like taking eye for an eye. The father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi’s words appear so relevant in this context that eye for an eyewill only end in blinding the whole world. Let us not mutually blind each other.

source: http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/...e-goes-contrary-to-Gandhi___s-philosophy.html

 

[Inderjeet Kaur]

Professor Singh Bhullar is no more a terrorist than I am a transvestite banker from Kyoto. He is not only not guilty, he is innocent. But what kind of justice can you expect from judges who say, "Proof beyond reasonable doubt is a guideline, not a fetish.” (Quoted in American Turban. )

I would go on, but that's as much as I can say without resorting to India bashing, and I'm trying hard to cut back on that.

I just noticed in the picture. He has a chain around one wrist and a kara around the other. That tells the whole story.

Waheguru. Heaven help us all.

 

[spnadmin]

It can be extremely helpful to have articles like this one, along with discussion, running side-by-side with coverage of Sada Haq. There are young people searching for a sense of their own history as Sikhs whose families will not discuss the past, and people learning about Sikhism for the first time who would not have a way of reconstructing these events on their own. Now we can see the living evidence of today that documents what happens when genocide is followed by suspension of basic human rights. 1984 did not end with the first day of 1985.

 

[jasbirkaleka]

Had one of the judges been from any of the minority communities, the judgement would have been very different.

 

[aristotle]

Had one of the judges been from any of the minority communities, the judgement would have been very different.

Babri Masjid case had Muslim judges, still see the judgement. Guess religion is not a big deal for the touts of the government (hope this doesn't go tangentially towards PM Manmohan ).

 

[SpiritualSingh]

Had one of the judges been from any of the minority communities, the judgement would have been very different.

I disagree because if he had been a Sikh then he would be some chosen Gaddar by Govt like Manmohan,Zail Singh, Brar etc

 

[Archived_Member16]

Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar: Tragic hero or villain?
Sunday, April, 14 2013 - 21:06

Our Political Editor

CHANDIGARH: Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar may have been awarded capital punishment that has been upheld by the Supreme Court of India. His mercy plea has been rejected by the President of India. Bhullar may have committed or masterminded a crime that the courts concluded to be the rarest of the rare that deserved no mercy.

Probably he may have been the mastermind as he confessed to his interrogators but retracted in the court. The issue is not whether he has committed the crime for which he has been convicted or not, but the quantum of punishment. There is a widespread opinion that he should not be hanged and his death sentence should be commuted to life. The opinion remains sharply divided between the extremists among those supporting and opposing his death penalty.

Bhullar’s life story is full of tragedy. Born to a middle class family in the southern Malwa of Punjab, he was the product of the worst of times when Punjab was passing through the darkest period in history. His father was a teacher. He completed his engineering from the Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College Ludhiana. He was a bright student as securing admission in GNE at that time was no mean achievement.

After completing his engineering he joined a polytechnic institution as a teacher and since then he came to be known as a professor. During this time he is believed to have come into contact with the extremist groups. The memories of Operation Bluestar and the post Indira Gandhi assassination anti-Sikh riots were quite fresh. Moreover there was a sense of persecution whether real or perceived as well among the young men of his time.

He was accused of masterminding three bomb blasts; one in Amritsar aimed at Maninderjit Singh Bitta, the another on the life of the then Chandigarh SSP Sumedh Singh Saini, who is now the Director General of Punjab Police, whose contribution to eliminating terrorism in Punjab remains unparalleled and that is the reason he was the target of the bomb attack and the third one outside the Indian Youth Congress aimed at Bitta, who survived while nine persons died in the blast.

In the aftermath of the attack on Chandigarh SSP, his father and maternal uncle were picked up by the police. They never returned home. One of his cousins was allegedly tortured in police custody to the extent that one of his limbs developed septicaemia and it had to be amputated. With father and uncle gone missing, and they are still missing, and a cousin losing his limb, he was personally devastated. The persecution complex obviously got aggravated with personal tragedies which he blamed on the state.

However, the reference to above mentioned facts is not to justify the crime he has been convicted of and sentenced to death. The acts are highly condemnable and deserve to be condemned and punished according to the law. And he has been duly punished having already spent about two decades in jail and most of these in solitary confinement with death sentence pronounced on him. He is suffering under acute depression and schizophrenia.

Had he been an ordinary criminal the death penalty may not have drawn so much of attention. His offence needs to be viewed in the context of the times he lived in. Punjab has moved ahead and put that dark past behind. People like Bhullar were the product of that dark era. They have suffered themselves as well, for a particular cause they thought was genuine and justified as most of the people at that time believed so. Their acts were in retaliation and vengeance, provoked by the situation and circumstances. That does not mean these should be exonerated. But during the process of reconciliation there is no harm in taking a lenient view. Just commuting a death sentence into life can send the right and positive signals.

There are other instances where the government of India has actually overlooked and forgiven as heinous crimes as Bhullar has committed. Some of such militants in Kashmir were rehabilitated and they even ended up becoming legislators. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik has himself admitted killing four Indian Air Force officers in the beginning of the Kashmir militancy. If Yasin Malik can be forgiven why cannot Bhullar? There are some other instances as well where the government of India has taken a lenient view which is in no way contrary to any legal provisions but actually is in the long term interest of the nation.

source: http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/Devinder-Pal-Bhullar_-Tragic-hero-or-villain_.html

 

[Inderjeet Kaur]

I shall not cuss. I shall not use bad language. I shall not call the delusional DF who wrote this article a DF. I have a large enough vocabulary that I can find other terms to use.

The persecution complex obviously got aggravated with personal tragedies which he blamed on the state.

Just as realist fear is not paranoia, when genocide is being committed against your people and yourself, that is no persecution complex; that is persecution simple.

Indian justice is...forget it. I am on an India-bashing fast.

 

[Archived_Member16]

Khalistani terrorist Bhullar likely to be hanged secretly

Bharti Jain, TNN - Apr 15, 2013, 01.31 AM IST

NEW DELHI: While Tihar Jail authorities wait for Devender Singh Pal Bhullar to be shifted back to prison from the Institute of Human Behaviour Allied Science (IHBAS), intelligence assessments have started trickling in, warning of an adverse fallout in Punjab of his impending execution. Intelligence circles are already debating whether his hanging should be carried out in secrecy, as was done in the case of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru.

According to a senior intelligence official, the likely spectre of trouble from radical fringe elements in his home state, Punjab, and possible attempts by inimical forces across the border to capitalize on his hanging to underline the alienation of Sikhs in India, may force the government to avoid his body's last journey to Bhatinda. Instead, his cremation may be carried out on the Tihar premises itself.

The bodies of Indira Gandhi's assassins — Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh — were also not handed over to their kin and cremated in Tihar after their execution in 1989.

Yet, mindful of the widespread criticism of its failure to inform Afzal's family ahead of its hanging, the government may be more sensitive this time to the concerns of Bhullar's kin. Care may be taken to keep the family in the loop on the execution of his death sentence, while also ensuring that secrecy is not compromised.

"The stress will be to convince the family of the inevitability of his hanging, underlining how all judicial avenues were allowed and exhausted. The family can be persuaded to put national interest over their personal loss, and cooperate with the authorities on averting any negative repercussions of his hanging on law and order," said a senior officer of the security establishment.

Though security analysts do not see any immediate law and order exigency in Punjab on account of the rejection of Bhullar's plea for commuting of his death sentence, they are watching with interest the political handling of the fallout in the Shiromani Akali Dal-ruled Punjab. With SGPC already questioning the judgment and calling it "biased against Sikhs", it remains to be seen how the radical elements and the powerful deras in Punjab react to the development.

Though analysts like former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Ajit Kumar Doval do not see Bhullar's judgment reviving the undercurrent of militancy, they are concerned that some dormant extremist elements may resort to mischief and sell the notion of alienation of Sikhs to unemployed and radicalized youth of Punjab. With some of the Sikh militancy leaders - Wadhawa Singh of Babbar Khalsa, Khalistan Commando Force Paramjit Singh Panjwar and T{censored}m Singh of the Khalistan Liberation Army - enjoying a safe haven in Pakistan for decades, their ISI mentors may step up pressure on them to use Bhullar's death sentence to paint India as an anti-Sikh nation.

However, not many think that this might revive militancy as a people's movement. "The Sikhs now no longer feel alienated and are involved in the political process. The people of Punjab have moved on, though fringe elements remain," former BSF director general UK Bansal told TOI. Doval, while pointing out that radicalized elements continue to enjoy support and funding from the Sikh diaspora, said this did not really point to return of militancy.

"The alienation caused by Bhullar's hanging will at most be a small contributory factor, apart from unemployment and poor political handling of the case's fallout. But, we should address these factors to avoid bigger problems," Doval added.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...o-be-hanged-secretly/articleshow/19549814.cms