Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana

Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana is a former Punjab Police constable who was sentenced to death for the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh on 31 August 1995. Sikh bodies call him a "living martyr." He has spent about thirty years in jail.

The 1995 case. A suicide bomb at the Punjab Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh killed Beant Singh and 16 others (ThePrint, The Tribune); the BBC reported 17 others. Dilawar Singh was the main bomber; Rajoana, who had joined the Punjab Police in 1987, was the designated back-up. ThePrint reported that he was linked to Babbar Khalsa International in the 1990s. He was arrested on 27 January 1996 and admitted his part, saying he had no regrets except for the deaths of innocents. In July 2007 a special court sentenced him and Bhai Jagtar Singh Hawara to death; ThePrint reports that it found Rajoana had planned the attack closely and tied the explosive belt on Dilawar Singh. In 2010 the High Court commuted Hawara's sentence to life. Rajoana did not appeal and asked for his execution, and the High Court upheld his sentence that October.

A mercy petition he did not file. His hanging was fixed for 31 March 2012. On 28 March it was stayed after the SGPC filed a mercy petition with the President of India under Article 72. Rajoana had not sought mercy himself: in 2019 ThePrint noted that he had neither hired a lawyer nor filed a petition. He has since asked for the SGPC's petition to be withdrawn. In November 2023 he wrote to the Akal Takht Jathedar and in December went on hunger strike, ending it on 8 December after a delegation led by the Jathedar met him in Patiala jail. In April 2026 he wrote again, warning of another fast; the SGPC then authorised the officiating Jathedar to decide on his appeal.

The 2019 announcement. In September 2019, to mark Guru Nanak Dev Ji's 550th birth anniversary, the Centre announced that it would commute his sentence to life. His 2020 petition to the Supreme Court asked for that decision to be carried out. He remains under sentence of death.

Key moments

• 3 May 2023: the Supreme Court declines to commute the sentence and leaves the mercy plea to the Centre.
• 20 January 2025: the Court gives the Centre what it calls a "last chance" and lists the case for 18 March.
• 24 September 2025: the Court says it will not entertain further adjournment requests from the Centre.
• 22 April 2026: the Centre is given a final two weeks to file its affidavit.
• 18 August 2026: the plea is to be heard by a three-judge bench.
• 7 October 2026: the Court lists it for 28 October 2026.

The arguments. The Home Ministry told the Court that the petition could not be considered because the SGPC, not Rajoana, had filed it, and that a decision must wait for other convicts' appeals; it later deferred any decision, citing national security and law and order. In January 2025 the Solicitor General called the matter "sensitive." Rajoana's counsel, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, argues that the delay of more than a decade is itself a ground for commutation, citing the case of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar. In September 2025 a bench asked the Centre: "The question is why didn't you hang him till now?"

What he is remembered for. Sikh bodies treat his refusal to seek clemency as the mark of a "living martyr." Not everyone agrees on commutation: in 2019 Captain Amarinder Singh said the Punjab Congress's stance was that the killers should serve their full sentences, though he personally opposed the death penalty.