Butcher of Trilokpuri’s case sent back to review board

“The SRB has been asked to reconsider the Lal’s plea pertaining to premature release in the light of sensitivity of the case and opposition by a section of a community,” Mukherjee added.

Citing good conduct and other parameters,the Tihar jail authorities had submitted to the SRB that the sentences of 36 life convicts be commuted. After the perusal of the cases by the SRB,which then sent a list of shortlisted cases from the said 36 for L-G’s approval,the life sentence of 15 convicts,including Lal,was commuted by Khanna.

Lal was sentenced seven times to death by the lower courts for stabbing victims during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Later,the Supreme Court commuted those sentences to life imprisonment. A resident of East Trilokpuri and a former butcher,48-year-old Lal,who late became in-famous as ‘Butcher of Trilokpuri’,has already already spent 16-years in jail.

After the commutation of his sentence came to light,a section Sikh bodies expressed resentment over the issue. While All India Sikh Students Federation announced to move the Delhi High Court challenging the L-G order,a delegation led by Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee chief Paramjit Singh Sarna and Delhi Transport and Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely met Khanna on Monday and told him that there was a widespread resentment in the community .

In Amritsar,SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said that “double standards” were being adopted while deciding the case of Kishori Lal and Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar,who is on death row for carrying out a blast outside the Youth Congress headquarters in New Delhi in 1993 which left nine dead and then Youth Congress chief Maninderjit Bitta seriously injured. Bhullar’s mercy plea was rejected by the President in May 2011.

“On one side,Lal who committed multiple murders is being ordered to go free. On the other side,the mercy plea of Bhullar was rejected. It is clear case of double standards,” Makkar said.