Death Penalty issue – Turn of Punjab, J&K to pass resolutions: Dal Khalsa

Amritsar, PUNJAB (September 05, 2011): Reacting on Omar Abdullah’s much publicized argument that ” in case J&K assembly had passed a resolution similar to the Tamil Nadu one for Afzal Guru there would have been political storm, the Dal Khalsa said “for how long the leaders representing the minority communities would live and act under fear psychosis and complex”.

“They (leaders) have to come out of complex, if they want to serve their people in true sense”, said Kanwar Pal Singh, spokesperson of the organization.

He urged Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and J& K chief minister Omar Abdullah to pass a resolutions in their respective assembly’s for the commutation of death sentences of Prof Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Afzal Guru on the pattern of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa moving the resolution in Tamil Nadu assembly seeking commutation of death sentence of A.G.Perarivalan, V.Sriharan and T.Suthendraraja into life sentence.

While hailing the Tamil Nadu Assembly for adopting a resolution favouring the commutation of the death sentence to three LTTE convicts, the Dal Khalsa activist blamed Badal and Abdullah for not showing enough courage and political will to save Bhullar and Guru from gallows.

To a question, he said when the (India) country is one and the law is same, what stops them. If Jayalalithaa can do it, why can’t Badal and Omar Abdullah?
In principle, Dal Khalsa reiterates its opposition to death penalty and favour commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment to one and all on humanitarian grounds, said he.

Although India has not carried out any execution for last 6 years, yet this unwritten moratorium should be converted into complete abolishment from the Indian statute, said the leader.