PATIALA: Balwant Singh Rajoana, sentenced to death for the 1995 assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to decide his pending mercy petition immediately or execute him, saying prolonged confinement on death row was “a punishment harsher than death itself”.In a five-page letter, Rajoana questioned the Union govt’s claim before the Supreme Court in 2023 that deciding his petition could endanger national security.He has been imprisoned for more than 31 years, including nearly two decades in solitary confinement on death row at Central Jail, Patiala.“A person who has been completely disarmed, closely monitored, and held in your custody for over three decades—how does deciding his petition pose a threat to the nation?” he wrote.Rajoana said he had never sought mercy or denied his involvement in the assassination, which he described as retaliation for state-sponsored atrocities during militancy in Punjab. He recalled sending his friend Dilawar Singh as the suicide bomber.“My conscience never allowed me to plead innocence before the court. I accepted the death penalty smilingly on July 31, 2007. I was neither the first nor will I be the last person to embrace death while standing against oppression,” he wrote.Rajoana accused PM Modi of highlighting the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the military assault on the Golden Temple while failing to act on his petition. He also alleged that central intelligence agencies manufactured and sustained the Khalistan issue for electoral polarisation.Drawing parallels with state actions avenging the Pahalgam terror killings, including retaliatory actions across borders under Operation Sindoor, Rajoana asked why youth who took up arms in response to the anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984 were branded terrorists, while state retaliation was celebrated as patriotism.Rajoana asked Modi to direct the Union ministry of home affairs to decide the petition, which has been pending for nearly 15 years.“As for me, take a decision immediately. If you want to hang me to fulfill any political obligation, do it without delay,” he wrote.An RDX explosion at Punjab Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on Aug 31, 1995, killed then Punjab CM Beant Singh and 16 others.Babbar Khalsa International carried out the attack, with former Punjab Police constable Dilawar Singh acting as the suicide bomber and Rajoana designated as backup. Rajoana was arrested in Dec 1995 and confessed to tying explosives around Dilawar Singh.A special CBI court sentenced Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara to death in July 2007. Punjab and Haryana high court commuted Hawara’s sentence to life imprisonment in 2010, but Rajoana did not appeal.After a Chandigarh court scheduled Rajoana’s execution for March 31, 2012, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee filed a mercy petition before the President on March 25, 2012. The Union ministry of home affairs stayed the execution three days later.In Sept 2019, the Union home ministry proposed commuting his sentence to life imprisonment as part of special remissions for Sikh prisoners, but the proposal was not formally implemented or sent to the President.On May 3, 2023, a three-judge Supreme Court bench declined to commute Rajoana’s sentence, leaving the competent authority to decide the petition. During hearings in 2024 and 2025, the Supreme Court questioned the Union govt over the delay.Rajoana had also asked the Akal Takht Jathedar and SGPC in Nov 2023 and April 2026 to withdraw the petition, saying he preferred execution to indefinite confinement.
