By IANS,
New Delhi : The European Union has appealed to India not to execute Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) terrorist Devender Singh Bhullar, whose mercy petition was rejected by the president last month.
The European Union has in a letter to Indian Home Minister P.Chidamabaram urged the Indian government not to hang Bhullar, sentenced to death for a 1993 car bomb attack in New Delhi that killed 12 people and injured 29, including former Youth Congress leader M.S. Bitta.
Speaking to reporters, German Ambassador Thomas Matussek said that they are going to appeal for not executing Bhullar, whose mercy petition was rejected by President Pratibha Patil in May.
“Our government together with the European Union is certainly going to make the appeal not to execute the capital punishment,” he said here.
“The EU high representative Catherine Ashton has written to the home minister,” he added.
Bhullar was convicted in 2001 and his mercy petition was pending with the president since January 2003. He was the mastermind of a car bomb attack on Bitta in front of 5, Raisina Road, office of the Youth Congress in New Delhi Sep 11, 1993.
The daring RDX blast in the heart of New Delhi had shocked the nation and prompted Bitta to set up the Anti-Terrorist Front.
Bhullar was deported back to India from Germany in 1995 and has been lodged in the high security ward in the Tihar Jail. He was deported after his application for political asylum was rejected. The decision to deport him was declared illegal by a Frankfurt court two years later.
He was sentenced to death Aug 25, 2001, and the Supreme Court dismissed his special leave petition Dec 27, 2006.
Sikh communities and human rights activists are running a campaign asking that his mercy petition be accepted.