Former Union Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Friday demanded immediate release of Balwant Singh Rajoana who is convicted in former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh’s assassination case.

In a letter to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Badal said the immediate release of Rajoana as a part of the fulfilment of the prime minister’s promise will help in healing the deep emotional and religious wounds the Sikh masses suffered under Congress regimes, especially in 1984 and thereafter.

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This healing touch, she said will strengthen the forces of peace and communal harmony in Punjab and the rest of the country.

The SAD leader also urged the Union government to honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “sacred commitment” to the Sikh quom (community) on the release of Bandi Singhs (Sikh prisoners who were convicted for alleged involvement in militancy in Punjab). Since the militancy was wiped out in early 1990s, the Sikh activists are demanding their release as they have already spent over three decades in jails, have grown old and some are physically and mentally unfit.

“The prime minister’s was not an ordinary announcement but a sacred promise made before the entire world on the historic occasion of the 550th Prakash Utsav of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji. He had committed himself to putting an end to the Bandi Singhs’ long and oppressive incarceration in dark cells and ending their extreme emotional alienation following systematic discrimination against the Sikh community as a whole,” Badal said in her letter.

The SAD leader said Rajoana and other devout Sikhs like him “were driven to extreme acts under the gravest religious provocation as Indira Gandhi’s Congress government rolled tanks and mortars to attack our holiest shrine, Sri Harmandar Sahib and demolished Sri Akal Takhat Sahib, the highest seat of Sikh religion-political authority (Miri Piri). This was followed by the unspeakable genocide of Sikhs in 1984,“.

“After the assassins of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi walked free, released on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, there is no justification for the continued laceration of Bhai Rajoana, Prof Devinderpal Singh Bhullar and other Sikh prisoners who had acted under extreme religious hurt and provocation,” said Badal added.

The former Union minister pointed out that Rajoana had already served over 28 years in prison, 16 of these in the dark death cells awaiting in agonising uncertainty over the decision on his eventual fate. She said a mercy petition filed by the apex Sikh religious body , the SGPC has been pending in the Union home ministry for 12 long years.

She said a notification issued by the Union Home Ministry for commuting the death penalty of Rajoana into life imprisonment on the 550th sacred Prakash Utsav of Shri Guru Nanak Dev ji also still awaits implementation. Badal demanded this notification be implemented without any further delay to pave the way for Rajoana’s release.

The Akali leader said that a positive decision on Bhai Rajoana’s release and on other Sikh issues will actually strengthen the forces of peace and communal harmony in the country.