N E W S
BJP Drags Its Feet on Devinderpal Singh Case

June 8, 2003: Ludhiana, India

In a June 1 press release, the International Human Rights Organization stated that although India's Central Ministry of Law and Justice directed the Department of Justice to take a necessary action for remission of the death sentence against Sikh dissident Devinderpal Singh, the Law and Justice Minister Arun Jaitley recently indicated to Sikh representatives that the case would be kept pending for some time.

The IHRO, which coordinates the Devinderpal Singh Defence Committee, commented, "It is intriguing, it's absurd; nay it's a sinister politic."

Devinderpal Singh was sentenced to death in December 2002 for the bombing outside the Delhi office of Congress activist Manjinder Bitta in which nine persons were killed. Several international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with the German government which wrongly extradited Singh to India, have made statements regarding the lack of evidence for a guilty conviction and the injustices of imposing a death sentence on such a dubious case.

The Defense Committee led a protest march and rally in Delhi on March 30 and sent its representatives to the President of India urging him to correct the injustice committed by the Judiciary in this case. The Defense Committee also wrote letters to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Law Minister asking them to apprise the President the gravity of the situation and to rectify the situation at the earliest.

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