A day after Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal sought the Prime Minister’s intervention for the release of Balwant Singh Rajoana who is convicted in former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh’s assassination case, Congress’ Member of Parliament (MP) from Ludhiana, Ravneet Singh Bittu on Tuesday questioned the intention behind this demand.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Bittu questioned the reason behind the Sukhbir Badal and his MP wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s constant demand to release Rajoana.
Bittu alleged Rajoana’s release can spoil the law and order situation in Punjab. Ravneet Bittu has also urged the PM to investigate why Sukhbir Badal often talks about releasing Rajoana “who killed a Punjab Chief Minister and 17 others with a bomb”.
“Sukhbir Singh Badal’s repeated demands for the release of the country’s biggest terrorist is part of a deeper conspiracy of the anti-national forces. At the behest of anti-national agencies, Sukhbir Badal, Harsimrat Badal, and Akali Dal in Parliament every six months and repeatedly write letters to the Prime Minister,” Bittu said in a tweet.
The Congress leader, who is Beant Singh’s grandson, said the SAD leaders want to cause loss of life. “I will write a letter to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister asking them to seriously investigate their plans,” he said in a tweet earlier.
In a letter to the Modi, the SAD chief had on Tuesday said the PM should intervene and expedite the matter of clemency of Rajoana with the competent authority to commute the death penalty awarded to him and ensure his release at the earliest.
The Union government had approved the commutation of Rajoana’s death sentence to life imprisonment as a humanitarian gesture in 2019.