Chandigarh, May 15: Babbar Khalsa militant Jagtar Singh Hawara was on Monday acquitted by the court of chief judicial magistrate in a 22-year-old Arms Act case.
Hawara was produced in the Ludhiana court through video conferencing from Delhi’s Tihar Jail where he is currently lodged for his involvement in Delhi bomb blast case. The court of judicial magistrate had on April 9 convicted Hawara and sent the case to the chief judicial magistrate to decide the quantum.
Hearing in this case, however, was deferred twice in the past one month. The case against Hawara was registered at Kotwali police station on December 30, 1995, under various sections of the Arms Act after an AK-56 rifle and 50 cartridges were recovered from his possession.
As per the prosecution, Hawara was arrested from near clock tower area. Hawara and another accused were awarded death sentence by a special court in Chandigarh on July 31, 2007, after they were convicted for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in August 1995. In 2010, the Punjab and Haryana high court had commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to Hawara.
