Amidst a galaxy of Sikh lead­ers from Pun­jab and Delhi, the two Dal Khalsa ac­tivists Sat­nam Singh Paonta Sahib and Tejin­der­pal Singh were ac­quit­ted by Ad­di­tional Ses­sions Judge Ajay Pandey at the Pa­tiala House courts, New Delhi to­day, with the de­tailed judge­ment ex­pected within the next few days.

There was an air of un­cer­tainty prior to the judge­ment which trans­formed into ju­bi­la­tion and Bole So Ni­hal and Raj Karega Khalsa slo­gans, the mo­ment the judge in his court­room loudly pro­nounced, “Bari kar diya aapko bhai” – “You have been ac­quit­ted”, to which Sat­nam Singh cheer­fully ac­knowl­edged and thanked the judge.

“This fi­nally draws cur­tains on the 37-year-old hi­jack­ing case in which 5 hi­jack­ers in­clud­ing the pre­sent duo had un­der­gone life im­pris­on­ment. The pros­e­cu­tion suc­ceeded in re­open­ing the case a few years ago and try two of the ac­cused again, but the court to­day ac­quit­ted the same and jus­tice has been done”, said Manin­der Singh, coun­sel for the ac­cused, who was as­sisted by Ad­vo­cates Jasleen Kaur and Harpreet Singh Hora.

Sub­se­quently, Sat­nam Singh and Tejin­der­pal Singh told the me­dia that “jus­tice has been served and the wrong which was done to us by foist­ing a case against us when we had al­ready been dis­charged af­ter com­plet­ing a life term, has been cor­rected by the judge. He thanked God Almighty, the Sikh com­mu­nity and well wish­ers who had prayed for their ac­quit­tal and free­dom.

Dal Khalsa party pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema, who was pre­sent in the courts said that, “We are happy for Sat­nam Singh and his fam­ily. We be­lieve that the judge has taken a pos­i­tive de­ci­sion.” Spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh said that “the ju­di­ciary has passed this lit­mus test and up­held its ho­n­our by this judge­ment be­cause the Sikhs have had a bit­ter ex­pe­ri­ence of the In­dian ju­di­ciary over the last few decades. This comes as a sav­ing grace to the party ac­tivists who have been ac­quit­ted.”

DS­GMC lead­ers Harmeet Singh, Kalkaji, for­mer DS­GMC chief Paramjit Singh Sarna, hu­man rights ac­tivist Prof. Jag­mo­han Singh,  SGPC mem­ber Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli, United Akali Dal gen­eral sec­re­tary Gur­deep Singh Bhatinda, and scores of Dal Khalsa ac­tivists in­clud­ing Sarab­jit Singh Ghu­man, Jas­bir Singh Khan­dur , Paramjit Singh and oth­ers were pre­sent in the courts to­day to ex­press sol­i­dar­ity with the two ac­cused. Kash­miri ac­tivist and for­mer Delhi Uni­ver­sity lec­turer Prof. S. A. R. Gee­lani, vis­ited Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj Sahib and con­grat­u­lated the Dal Khalsa ac­tivists on their ac­quit­tal.

New Delhi, 27 Au­gust, 2018, WSN Cor­re­spon­dent