Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann seeks 10-day parole for Beant Singh assassin Hawara, cites mother’s ill health | Chandigarh News

The CM also referred to a petition filed by Hawara before the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking parole and said the court had directed the authorities to consider his plea. “Therefore, on humanitarian grounds, I wish to request you that, keeping in view the deteriorating health of Hawara’s mother, he may kindly be granted parole for 10 days at the earliest,” Mann wrote.

The high court had last month directed authorities in Delhi’s Mandoli prison, where Hawara is lodged, to decide the parole application of the Babbar Khalsa terrorist in a time-bound manner after seeking recommendations of the Chandigarh Administration.

Just over a week back, a delegation of Shiromani Akali Dal (Punar Surjit) had met the Governor, seeking his intervention in allowing Hawara to meet his ailing mother.

Hawara is serving life sentence in the case relating to the August 31, 1995 assassination of Beant Singh, who was killed along with 16 others in a bomb blast outside the Punjab Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh. Hawara and co-accused Balwant Singh Rajoana were sentenced to death by the trial court in 2007. The high court in 2010 commuted Hawara’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Associated with Babbar Khalsa International, he was “appointed” a parallel Jathedar of the Akal Takht — the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs — by a Sarbat Khalsa held in 2015. The appointment, however, was disputed and was not recognised by the shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).

The move by Mann assumes political significance as the demand for the release of “Bandi Singhs” (Sikh prisoners who are said to have completed their sentences yet to continue to remain in jail) is being raised by Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De), the outfit led by jailed Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh. Just over a week ago, supporters of the outfit had clashed with police when they were stopped from marching to the official residence of CM Mann in Chandigarh, demanding the release of Amritpal Singh and the Bandi Singhs.

While a senior AAP leader said noting much should be read into mann;s letter as he has made the request “on humanitarian grounds”, political observers say Hawara’s political and religious legacy carries a different weight from that of Amritpal Singh, who remains lodged in Dibrugarh Central Jail where he was initially shifted after the stribgent NSA was invoked against him. Though his NSA detention ended in April this year, Punjab Police formally arrested him in connection with the Ajnala police station attack case and he continues to remain in the same jail.

“Hawara is considered a parallel Akal Takht Jathedar. There are multiple dimensions to this development. Bandi Singhs is the main agenda of Akali Dal-WPD and several other Panthic outfits including the Shiromani Akali Dal. AAP is in a running battle against the SAD over control of the SGPC,” said a political observer.

Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, an activist lawyer who has been taking up cases involving Bandi Singhs in various courts, said the move was welcome even if Hawara was released only for 10 days. “It is long overdue. It is a good step in the light of the fact that a CM is backing parole for a Bandi Singh for the first time ever,” he said.

The development also comes a day after Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggering fresh speculation about a possible revival of the SAD-BJP alliance ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.