M A I N   N E W S

KLF ultra sentenced to death
Car blast outside IYC office in 1993

New Delhi, August 25
A Delhi court today sentenced to death a Sikh militant for exploding a car bomb near the Youth Congress office here in 1993, killing nine persons and injuring 29, including the then YC President 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, IPC 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 sentence shall not be executed unless it is confirmed by the Supreme Court,” the Judge said, adding that till then Devender Pal Singh, a resident of Dayalpur Bhaika village in Bathinda district of Punjab, be committed to jail custody.

The court, however, acquitted his accomplice, Daya Singh Lahoria, a resident of Kasba Baroli in Sangrur district of Punjab, giving him the benefit of the 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 Panjab University teacher, the Judge said the reasons cited by him for leniency were “not mitigating factors in the facts and circumstances of the case.” PTI