SGPC to meet Prez, to seek mercy for Rajoana

A delegation of Shiromani Gurudwara Parbhandhak Committee (SGPC) members will soon meet President Pranab Mukherjee and urge him to decide mercy petition of condemned prisoner Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted for the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.
SGPC President Kirpal Singh Badungar said, a seven-member delegation led by him will meet the President soon in this regard.
The SGPC chief said Rajona is in jail for the last two decades and was mentally not stable.
Keeping in view his health condition, the President will be urged to grant him mercy, he added.
Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa International terrorist, is the prime accused and convicted for the assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh on August 31, 1995.

Beant Singh was killed by Rajoana's associate Dilwar Singh Babbar and Rajoana was the backup human bomb to be used had Dilawar failed in his mission.

Rajoana was awarded death sentence by the Chandigarh Court on July 27, 2007, thereafter High Court upheld the decision of lower court.
Later in 2012, the SGPC had filed a mercy petition before the President which was still pending for an outcome, Badungar said.
He said the SGPC delegation would meet the President to request him to decide the pending mercy petition at the earliest, possibly in Rajoana's favour.