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On January 18, Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar told reporters that the Delhi police forced him to confess to committing the September 11, 1993 blast outside the Indian Youth Congress building that killed nine people. Bhullar said that police used his forced confession to build a fabricated case against him.

Counsel for Davinder, who was brought on production warrant by the local police from the Tihar Jail and produced in the court amid tight security, claimed he had later retracted from the confessional statement. However, since the police confession was admissible in the TADA Court he was sentenced on the basis of the confessional statement.

Bhullar went to Germany in December 1994 to seek political asylum after the Punjab police disappeared his father in 1991 and repeatedly harassed and tortured his family. The German authorities denied Bhullar’s asylum application in January 1995 and deported him to India where he has been in prison since his arrest upon arrival. After his deportation, a Higher German court ruled that Germany should not have deported him because his life would be in danger in India.

In a 2-1 decision, the Supreme Court of India passed the death sentence on March 22, 2002. They confirmed the sentence after hearing the defendant’s appeal on August 5, 2002. The Indian government failed to honor its agreement with the German government not to impose the death penalty.

The presiding Justice acquitted Bhullar, stating that the conspiracy theory falls flat as the “rest of the accused who are named in the confessional statement are not convicted or tried.” He also noted that the confession statement was signed by a thumbprint, implying duress since Bhullar was a professor and could have signed the statement. Furthermore, none of the 133 witnesses produced by the prosecution, while the case was in the lower court, identified Bhullar.

Meanwhile,the District and Sessions Judge, Mr HS Bhalla, today fixed February 25 as the date for the consideration of charges in another case relating to attack on the former Chandigarh SSP, Mr Sumedh Singh Saini, in 1991.

Bhullar’s counsel argued that the Punjab Police had framed him for the Saini attack to prevent him from pursuing the case of his missing father.  Sumedh Singh Saini has been implicated by survivors in numerous cases of torture, disappearance and extrajudicial execution.

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