Chandigarh, Apr 21 (PTI) Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday sought Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's intervention in ensuring the immediate release of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict.

Badal, in a letter to the AAP national convener, requested him to “apprise the Sentence Review Board (SRB) of the Delhi government about the special remission granted to Prof Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar by the union government to ensure his immediate release from prison”.

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The SAD president said it was a matter of concern that the Delhi SRB had “rejected the proposal for Prof Bhullar's release repeatedly”.

“You yourself had during the recent Punjab assembly election stated that you had directed the SRB to meet and reconsider its earlier decision to block Prof Bhullar's release. The fact that the opposite occurred during the meeting of the SRB on March 3 has raised a question mark on the commitment made by you in this context,” wrote Badal, according to a SAD statement here.

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In the run up to the Punjab Assembly elections held in February, the SAD had accused the Kejriwal government of obstructing the release of Bhullar, but the Delhi chief minister had then charged the SAD with doing “dirty politics” over the issue.

Bhullar was convicted in connection with the killing of nine people and injuring 31 in the blast. He was awarded death penalty by a designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court in August 2001, but the Supreme Court commuted his capital punishment to life sentence in 2014.

A few days ago, Badal had sought the prime minister's intervention for the release of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a convict in the assassination case of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.

Badal had said Rajoana has been in the jail for the past 26 years, a period more than the “effective equivalent” of a life sentence.

On Bhullar, Badal said the inordinate delay in this release had hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community as well as Punjabis at large.

He asserted that Bhullar's quick release would “consolidate peace and communal harmony in Punjab”.

“There is a growing demand from the community as well as Punjabis in general that Prof Bhullar, who has been incarcerated for more than 26 years, be freed on humanitarian grounds keeping in view his worsening mental and physical health. This sentiment should be respected,” he said.

The SAD leader alleged that the Kejriwal government alone was standing in the way of the Sikh prisoner's release.

The Supreme Court had commuted Bhullar's death sentence to life on the grounds of inordinate delay in deciding his mercy petition, he said.

“Following this, the path was cleared for Prof Bhullar's release, with the central government approving his release along with that of eight other Sikh prisoners on the occasion of the 550th Parkash Purab of Guru Nanak Dev ji in October, 2019. The Centre also directed the respective state governments and Union Territories to carry out the remission in consultation with the Centre,” Badal said.

“However, the entire community was shocked when the Delhi government rejected the proposal for Prof Bhullar's permanent release during a meeting of the SRB headed by Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain in 2020. The release has subsequently been blocked four times,” he alleged.

Earlier, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the apex religious body of the Sikhs, had slammed the AAP dispensation for its “negative attitude” towards Bhullar's release and demanded the Centre's intervention in the matter.

In January, while campaigning in Jalandhar for the Punjab polls, Kejriwal had told reporters that since Delhi is “not a full state”, and hence “law and order and the police come under the Centre -- under the Lieutenant Governor”.

“A sentence review board, comprising judge, police officers, secretaries and other members, deliberates on the issue of remission of sentence, release et cetra and arrives at a decision. I don't have any role in this.

“When I came to know about this (Bhullar issue), I told the home secretary that a meeting of this board be convened at the earliest... and whatever be the decision of the board will be put up before the Lieutenant Governor,” Kejriwal had said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)