New Delhi:
Punjab militant Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's wife has approached the Supreme Court seeking a stay on his execution.
Bhullar was given the death sentence for killing nine people with a car bomb in Delhi in 1993. On April 12 this year, the Supreme Court had dismissed his plea that asked for his death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.
Bhullar had appealed against his hanging saying the President of India had taken eight years to reject his mercy plea. While his lawyers argued that the delay was grounds for commuting his death sentence, the judges disagreed and said no mercy could be showed to Bhullar because he was convicted for terror activities.
However, three weeks later, the court commuted the death sentence of a murderer on the grounds that the President's office took too long to reject his petition seeking mercy.
In her plea, Bhullar's wife Navneet Kaur said today that Bhullar has already filed a review petition against the court's April 12 order and urged that he should not be hanged till the court order on this request is announced.
Her petition was mentioned before the Chief Justice of India today by senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who said in court that Bhullar's family feared that he might face the same fate as Afzal Guru, the Parliament attack convict who was hanged in Delhi's Tihar Jail in February this year. His family was informed of his execution two days later.