Burail Jail (Model Jail, Chandigarh)

Burail Jail, officially the Model Jail, is the main prison of Chandigarh, a Union Territory run by the Chandigarh Administration. It holds several Sikhs convicted in the 1995 assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, and in January 2004 it was the scene of a tunnel escape.

Key moments

• 21 and 22 January 2004: Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bheora and Jagtar Singh Tara, all then on trial for the assassination, escaped from barrack number 7 with a cook, Devi Singh, through a tunnel dug beneath three walled security rings. The Tribune reported a 94-foot tunnel at the time, and 104 or 109 feet in 2015. Hawara was rearrested in 2005, Bheora in 2006 and Tara in Thailand in January 2015; Devi Singh was never arrested.
• 27 July 2007: a special CBI court convicted six men in the Beant Singh case (Supreme Court, 2023). On 31 July it sentenced Balwant Singh Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara to death (The Hindu, 31 July 2007). Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh received life imprisonment, which The Tribune dates 1 August 2007. Lakhwinder Singh Lakha and Bheora also serve life terms, and Tara was given life on 17 March 2018 after confessing in December 2017.
• August 2015: a Chandigarh court acquitted 14 accused of helping the escape and convicted Hawara and Bheora, ruling that the time they had served covered it.
• 31 October 2022: an order declined Gurmeet Singh’s plea for premature release, and he went to the High Court, which issued notice to the Union Territory of Chandigarh. In January 2023 the High Court ordered regular bail for convicts who had finished their life terms while release decisions were pending. Lakha was freed on bail in May 2023, Gurmeet Singh on 2 June and Shamsher Singh on 20 September.
• March 2024: after the Administration declined their release, a court issued non-bailable warrants against Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh because they had not surrendered (The Tribune).

Why it matters. Burail is one of the jails where the Bandi Singhs question is decided. The Tribune’s reports show that in these petitions the respondent is the Union Territory of Chandigarh: notice went to the Administration and the jail superintendent, and it was the Administration that refused release. Supporters point to the length of the sentences, more than 27 years in Gurmeet Singh’s case by 2023.