New Delhi:
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met the Prime Minister today and sought his immediate intervention in commuting the death sentence of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar.
The Supreme Court last week rejected a petition by Bhullar seeking that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment as his mercy plea had not been decided by the president for a long time.
The Punjab chief minister was accompanied by his son, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.
"In the overall national interest and in the interest of peace and communal harmony in the country in general and in Punjab in particular, the death penalty in this case may be commuted into life imprisonment," said the memorandum submitted by the Akali Dal leaders to the Prime Minister.
They also said that nobody has been hanged yet for the 1984 riots in which hundreds of Sikhs were killed after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. "While the law of the land should be upheld, it must be seen to have been upheld uniformly for everyone and for all sections of society," a spokesperson for them told news agency IANS.
Jail officials and doctors have said Bhullar is undergoing treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) in Delhi for mental illness.
Referring to Bhullar's health condition, Sukhbir Badal, quoting doctors, said that the execution could not be carried out in these conditions.
Bhullar was given the death sentence for a 1993 car bomb in Delhi in which nine people were killed.