Balwant Singh Rajoana is a former Punjab police constable and Babbar Khalsa supporter, who is notorious for being a convict in the assassination of the former Chief Minister of Punjab Beant Singh. Rajoana was sentenced to death on 1 August 2007 by a special CBI court in Chandigarh
Wiki/Biography
Balwant Singh Rajoana was born on Wednesday 23 August 1967 (age 55 years, as of 2022) was born in Rajoana Kalan in the Ludhiana district of Punjab. His zodiac sign is Virgo. He studied till the eleventh standard in the local village and then was listed in college for further studies. As a part of the government’s welfare scheme, Balwant Singh was given a job in the Punjab Police in 1987 as a constable after his father was killed by some militants. In 1993, Rajoana was deputed as a private security officer with a journalist of a vernacular daily in Patiala.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 11″
Hair Colour: Salt & Pepper
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
Rajoana’s father, Malkeet Singh, was an army man and sarpanch of Rajoana Kalan who terrorists killed. Apparently, the terrorists had come from Malkeet Singh’s brother who had also served as the sarpanch of the village. While trying to stop one of the terrorists, Malkeet Singh was shot dead. Rajoana’s mother’s name is Gurmeet Kaur. His elder brother’s name is Kulwant Singh.
Balwant Singh Rajoana’s parents
Balwant Singh Rajoana’s brother, Kulwant Singh
He was legally adopted by Jaswant Singh in 1993 after his own father Malkeet Singh passed away. His foster parents, Jaswant Singh and Surjit Kaur, lost their daughter, Amandeep Kaur, and son, Harpinder Singh Goldy, during the insurgency in Punjab in the mid-1980s. Allegedly, Amandeep and Harpinder were abducted and killed by the Punjab Police. Surjit Kaur died in 2013 after being electrocuted by a defective electric fan. Jaswant Singh died on 22 January 2022. His foster sister’s name is Kamaldeep Kaur.
Balwant Singh Rajoana’s foster brother, Harpinder Singh Goldy
Balwant Singh Rajoana’s foster sister Amandeep Kaur
Balwant Singh Rajoana with his foster sister Kamaldeep Kaur
Wife
He is unmarried.
Humiliation During Insurgency in Punjab
In October 1991, Balwant Singh Rajoana’s foster sister Amandeep Kaur was abducted from the office of the sub-registrar, Rampura Phul, where she was visiting with her father and husband for the registration of her marriage. They were then taken to the Phul Police Station where SSP Kahlon was in-charge. At the police station, the three were mistreated by stripping naked in front of each other, making them slap each other, and being robbed of all their jewels and cash. Amandeep Kaur was sexually assaulted while she was illegally detained. Meanwhile, her mother, Surjeet Kaur, was abducted, raped, and illegally detained in a Rampura police station. After she was released from the police station, her husband left her. Thereafter, she was on the run from SSP Kahlon to escape further humiliation and torture. She stayed in hiding until 21 January 1992 when she was tricked to come back home, where she was shot dead. The committee documentation revealed that police picked them up while looking for the couple’s son, Harpinder Singh Goldy, who had gone underground after being harassed by police.
The assassination of Beant Singh
On 31 August 1995, Beant Singh was assassinated in a bomb blast which blew up his bulletproof at the secretariat complex in Chandigarh. The blast claimed the lives of 17 others including 3 Indian commandos. Beant Singh was accompanied by his close friend Ranjodh Singh Mann on the day of the assassination. Dilawar Singh Babbar of Babbar Khalsa International acted as the suicide bomber with Rajoana as a backup bomber. Balwant and Dilawar had flipped a coin for deciding who would become the human bomb.
Testimony
On 25 December 1997, Balwant Singh Rajoana confessed his hand in Beant Singh’s killing in the makeshift courtroom of Burail Jail, Chandigarh. Before being silenced, he raised pro-Khalistan slogans,
Khalistan zindabad, Bhai Dilawar Singh zindabad!”
His confession left the prison authorities and journalists awestruck who then asked Rajoana, “Why would someone at such a time want to give up his life?” to which Rajoana replied,
Tusi key jano dosti kinj nebhai jandi hai (How do you know the way of living up to friendship)?”
Apparently, when Dilawar Singh won the fatal toss and agreed to lose his life, he asked Balwant Singh to confess his hand in the crime. In his testimony, Balwant Singh revealed that he had tied the belt containing the explosives around Dilawar Singh, the assassin of Beant Singh. Rajoana defended his actions citing the deep wounds on the Sikh psyche caused by questionable methods the government had used to put down the Khalistan movement including Operation Blue Star. He spoke of the aftereffects of Indira Gandhi’s assassination when Sikhs were burnt, denied funeral rites, and emasculated and women were dishonoured. Rajoana asked the Chief Justice,
Who were the terrorists: those who did these acts or those who defended the victims?…Human beings can fight such injustice and oppression only by becoming human bombs and sacrificing themselves.”
Thereafter, he alleged that Beant Singh, a member of the Congress party, had approved fake encounter killings, abductions, and secret cremations, which remained unpunished. Furthermore, he added that the government had mocked the sentiments of the Sikh community by honouring and promoting those that led such pogrom against Sikhs.
Conviction
The special CBI court gave the death sentence to Rajoana in the Beant Singh case on 1 August 2007. Rajoana was jailed in Patiala Central Jail when the Chandigarh court issued the death warrant to the Patiala jail authorities for executing Rajoana scheduled on 31 March 2012. The death warrants sparked protests among the Sikh communities all around the world.
Members of the Sikh community take part in a demonstration against the death penalty to Balwant Singh Rajoana
Though Rajoana didn’t file any mercy petition of his own, in 2012, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) filed a petition to cancel his death sentence with President Pratibha Patil. Rajoana’s execution, which was to be carried out on March 31 2012 at the Patiala Central Jail, was stayed after Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal met Pratibha Patil seeking clemency for Rajoana. In a letter released from the prison, criticised the Punjab government led by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for attempting to save his life. He stated that the SAD leaders were cheaters and did not fight for justice for the Sikhs killed in the riots in 1984 after then PM Indira Gandhi’s assassination. He refused sympathy from the BJP, Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh, and the family of Beant Singh, who had stated that Rajoana shouldn’t be hanged. In May 2022, The SC directed the Centre to decide within two months Rajoana’s plea that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of his long incarceration of nearly 26 years.
Religion
A staunch follower of Sikhism, Rajoana was baptized (Amrit Sanchar) in Patiala central jail in the presence of Akal Takht Jathedar while he was on death row in late CM Beant Singh’s assassination case.
A picture of Balwant Singh Rajoana taking Amrit in Patiala Jail
Political Inclination
Balwant Singh Rajoana is politically inclined toward the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and strongly opposes Indian National Congress (INC). In his address at Gurdwara Baba Deep Singh of Ludhiana, where he was attending his father’s last rites, he supported the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and said,
Meri rooh akali, mera dal akali, main akali.. iss dharti tey sarkaar akali…
(My soul is Akali, my heart is Akali, I am Akali.. there should be an Akali government on this earth)
He also added,
Akali Dal is our own party and it is representative of our panth. End Congress’ rule.”
Facts/Trivia
- Of all those convicted in this case, Balwant Singh was the only one who confessed his guilt. He refused to contest the prosecution’s charges, challenge its evidence, engage a lawyer, or accept a court-appointed lawyer.
- Balwant Singh, in his will, donated his eyes to Lakhwinder Singh (Ragi at Golden Temple Amritsar) and his kidneys, heart or any other body part to needy patients.
- He is a voracious reader and follower of Punjabi literature. Surjit Patar and Jaswant Singh Kanwal are his favourite writers.
- Akal Takht leader Gurbachan Singh had given clothes to Rajoana to wear during his execution. However, he returned the clothes when his death penalty was stayed.
- The title of “Living Martyr” was bestowed upon Rajoana by Akal Takhat, the highest temporal seat of the Khalsa, on 23 March 2012. After refusing to accept it for a while, Rajoana accepted the tile of 27 March 2022. Meanwhile, Dilawar Singh Babbar was awarded the title of “National Martyr” by Akal Takhat.
- On 31 January 2022, he was escorted by the Police to attend his father’s funeral in Ludhiana after he was granted permission by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
- In December 2015, Rajoana made headlines when he manhandled a senior journalist Kanwar Sandhu, along with controversially dismissed cop Gurmeet Singh Pinky, when the latter tried to meet him on the Patiala jail premises for an interview. Apparently, Rajoana attributed his outrageous behaviour to Sandhu having levelled baseless allegations against him at Pinky’s behest. Previously, Sandhu, who ran the Free Media Initiative, had interviewed Pinky at length. In the interview, Pinky alleged that Rajoana had called him to the Burail jail in Chandigarh and informed him that Jagtar Singh Hawara and the others involved in the Beant Singh assassination were planning to escape for which RDX had been smuggled into the jail. He said that on the information provided by Rajoana, the RDX was recovered and the jailbreak plan foiled.