Amritsar, February 12 Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Kuldip Singh Garg on Thursday termed the BJP-led Delhi government's rejection of a petition seeking the release of Devinderpal Singh Bhullar, a 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict, as "unfortunate".
Gargajj said that recently, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Cabinet Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, and other ministers had met him at the Akal Takht Sahib secretariat, during which he had urged the chief minister to ensure Bhullar's release.
He said that earlier, for ten years, the Aam Aadmi Party government led by Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi had kept the matter of Bhullar's release pending and "failed" to respect the sentiments of the Sikh community.
He added that now, after the change of regime in Delhi with the BJP coming to power, the government's Sentence Review Board considered the cases of release of 51 prisoners, out of which 24 cases were rejected, while 27 were approved.
Gargajj said, viewing Bhullar's case from the perspective of humanity and compassion, the government should respect the sentiments of the entire Sikh community and permanently release him, as he has already completed his sentence.
Bhullar was convicted in connection with the 1993 blast, in which nine people were killed and 31 were injured. He was awarded the 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.
