NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
A Delhi court on Friday sentenced to death a Sikh militant for exploding a car bomb near the Youth Congress office in 1993, killing nine persons and injuring 29, including the then president of Youth Congress M S Bitta.
Pronouncing capital punishment to Khalistan Liberation Force militant Devender Pal Singh, Additional Sessions Judge V K Jain ordered that he 'be hanged by the neck till he is dead'.
Convicting Devender Pal Singh under Section 5 of TADA, Section 302 Indian Penal Code and various other provisions of the two acts on the basis of his confessional statement, the judge said, "The death sentence is subject to confirmation by the Supreme Court."
The court, however, acquitted his accomplice Daya Singh Lahoria, a resident of Kasba Baroli of Sangrur District in Punjab giving him benefit of doubt on the ground that the confessional statement given by Devender Pal Singh about his complicity could not be corroborated.
The accused had exploded a 40-kg-RDX-device planted in an Ambassador car opposite the Indian Youth Congress Office at 5, Raisina Road in the VIP area of the capital in the afternoon of September 11, 1993.
The accused knew that such a powerful bomb blast was likely to cause death, damage to buildings, vehicles and other properties, the court said.
Rejecting the leniency plea of Devender Pal Singh, an engineering graduate and a Punjab University teacher, the Judge said the reasons cited by him for leniency were 'not mitigating factors in the facts and circumstances of the case'.
He had pleaded to the court to take a lenient view on the grounds that he was of 'tender and impressionable age' at the time of commission of offence, was not a previous convict and was the sole bread earner of his family comprising wife and old mother.
But the court rejected his plea on the ground that when he committed the crime he was not of tender and impressionable age but a fully-grown up man teaching in a university.
Stating that the convict and his accomplices' aim was to eliminate Bitta, the court observed they had used 'a very cruel and unforgivable' method to achieve it.
"The convict and his accomplices became so blind in achieving their aim that they paid no regard to the lives of innocent persons who were accompanying Bitta or happened to be present nearby at the time of explosion," the judge said rejecting the leniency plea.
Tell us what you think of this report
