Amritsar – The 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict Prof. Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar was granted parole for 21 days “for good behaviour” on Saturday, police said.
He went to the Golden Temple to offer prayers soon after his release. This is the first time he was granted parole after two decades of incarceration.
Prof. Bhullar was declared guilty of killing nine bystanders in a 1993 car bombing targeted at politician Maninderjit Singh Bitta, and sentenced to death in 2001. However, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court in 2014.
Prof. Bhullar, who has spent 23 years in jail, was on March 3 granted bail in a 23-year-old case in which Batala police had shot two suspected terrorists.
His release comes a day after another Sikh political prisoner Bhai Gurdeep Singh Khera was released on parole.
Prof. Bhullar was moved from Tihar Jail in Delhi to the Amritsar Central Jail in June last year and was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Government Medical College, Amritsar, soon after. He reportedly suffers from schizophrenia.
Visits Darbar Sahib
Following his release from the Central Jail of Amritsar at 8:30 pm on April 23, Professor Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar visited Sri Harmandir Sahib, along with his wife Bibi Navneet Kaur. He did not respond to questions from the media. The only words that he spoke were, “Sab da dhanwaad,” or thanks to everyone.
Bibi Navneet Kaur said that her husband husband wished to visit Sri Darbar Sahib following his release and that they had come there to thank Guru Sahib for the blessings that had made Prof. Bhullar’s release possible. After paying homage at Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib, Prof. Bhullar and his wife were accompanied to their native village, Dyalpur Bhaika, by other Sikh activists.