We urge Punjab chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh and opposition leader Parkash Singh Badal to learn lesson from their Jammu & Kashmir counterparts and speak with one voice to save Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar from being hanged.

Similarly, we urge the President of India to do away with the capital punishment from the Indian statute. In principle, this inhuman practice should come to an end and for that “Mr Kalam can use his good office to evolve consensus across the political spectrum”.

It was highly appreciable that politicians from different shades with divergent ideologies had joined hands in Kashmir to save Afzal Guru, a convict in the Parliament attack case, from gallows. Notably, the public stand of Chief Minister of Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad, opposition leader Farooq Abdullah and different factions of Hurriyat Conference vis-à-vis the hanging of Afzal is the same.

The statement by Farooq Abdullah that it was time for all us to get together to save Afzal from being hanged reflects the spirit of regionalism. But, ironically this spirit is missing in both Amrinder and Badal. “Instead of indulging in mud-slinging, both should work in tandem to pursue the Indian government for remitting Bhullar’s death sentence”.

We also ask Captain Amrinder Singh to direct the Punjab DGP to honour the spirit of the court orders who had convicted cat-turned-police inspector Gurmit Singh Pinki in a murder case of Avtar Singh. He should be suspended and arrested. It is really disgusted that in spite of his being convicted and criminal background he was still on duty and enjoying the patronage of higher ups.

Pinki was involved in many extra-judicial killings of Sikh youths in the past. He also manhandled Chandigarh based Bibi Manjot Kaur and implicated her in a false case few months back. The family members of Avtar Singh, who was brutally murdered by Pinki, have seen the light of the justice after going through hardships for four and half year. It was the primary responsibility of the state to look after their security as they feel threatened by the terror of this infamous policeman.