* The Only Outcome Must Be, That Professor Bhullar Is Set Free...*

[WaljinderSingh]

Although, at last week’s Supreme Court hearing, Sikh groups welcomed the Union Governments decision that Professor Bhullar would not be executed, there is a strong demand that Devinderpal Singh Bhullar must now be set free.

The real tragedy is that the pain of the past 19 years should never have been endured by Bhullar and his family. The disappearance and eventual killing by Punjab Police, of Professor Bhullar's father and uncle is believed to have been a turning point in his life. The two were picked up in December 1991 after Police could not find Bhullar, who they were trying to frame in a case for which he was later acquitted.

The Professor, who at the time taught at Ludhiana Polytechnic, immediately went underground only three months after he had married Navneet Kaur, as he knew he was next on the list to be ‘disappeared’. He sought political asylum in Germany, from where he was deported – a decision which the German Government later admitted was a gross injustice as his life, truly was in danger if he was returned to India. In 1995 he was tried and convicted in the Delhi car bomb case.
This turn of events shocked his colleagues and friends, who remember the mechanical engineering graduate from Ludhiana's Guru Nanak Engineering College as a studious man, who loved hockey. Professor Bhullar, his wife and his family have been robbed of their future.

The Tamil community have also been showing their support for Professor Bhullar and the plight of the Sikhs, at a recent rally on 2nd March in Tamil Nadu and also at a protest that took place in New Delhi against the Tamil genocide.

Sikh Organisation For Prisoners Welfare (SOPW)