Three convicted of waging war against state move HC

IT HAS BEEN ARGUED IN THE APPEAL THAT THEY WERE CONVICTED WITHOUT ANY RECOVERY OF ARMS OR EXPLOSIVES

CHANDIGARH : Three youths convicted and awarded life term by an SBS Nagar court for waging war against state (Indian government) have approached the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking suspension of the sentence and their immediate release. Human rights lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains said he has filed an appeal which is likely to come up for hearing next week.

The conviction order against Arvinder Singh, Surjit Singh and Ranjit Singh was passed on January 31, while quantum of sentence was pronounced on February 5.

The FIR against the three was arrested in May 2016, and later they were charged with waging war against the state and under the Unlawful Activities Act.

The prosecution’s allegation was that the trio was enticing Sikh youths to join the Babbar Khalsa and wage war against India.

The allegations were also that they planned to attack a particular community using guns and bombs.

The police claimed to have recovered 97 books, 198 photographs, 13 photographs related to Khalistan convention of 1978, and 1,000 books on Sukhdev Singh Babbar, the founding member of Babbar Khalsa.

The court had said that trio was secretly working towards creating Khalistan.

It has been argued in the appeal that they were convicted without any recovery of arms or explosives and without having proof of their being member of any unlawful organisation.

“Preparation of waging war has to be of the nature of war, including collection of weapons and objects. There was no show of criminal force and no ingredient of such an offence is in the FIR or in the final report,” the appeal reads.