With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) reversing its stand on the parole for imprisoned Sikh militant Jagtar Singh Hawara, the issue of Sikh militant prisoners has returned to the centre of Punjab’s political discourse just a few months before the Assembly polls. This has the potential to shape the contours of the Panthic (Sikh community) vote in the state and, by extension, the outcome.Hawara has been convicted for the 1995 assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. On Monday, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) — the apex governing body of all gurdwaras — held an event at the Darbar Sahib complex on the death anniversary of Dilawar Singh, the suicide bomber who killed Beant Singh. Tarsem Singh, the father of jailed Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) leader and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh — and one of the claimants for the Panthic vote — attended the event.AdvertisementThis came a couple of days after a delegation met Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to thank him for pushing for a 10-day parole for Jagtar Singh Hawara, one of the convicts in the Beant Singh assassination who is lodged in Delhi’s Mandoli prison. Mann wrote to Governor Gulab Chand Kataria on the issue and even met him.Read | Corridors of Power | Channi-Waris Punjab De buzz, BJP yatra and SAD signalThe delegation that met Mann included Hawara’s cousin Pushpinder Kaur and Jaswant Singh, a longtime associate and co-accused in the 1998 Burail jail conspiracy case in which he was acquitted in 2003. Sikh preacher Baldev Singh Wadala, who has positioned himself as a mediator between Hawara’s family and the state, described the request as a humanitarian matter rather than political, framing the appeal around Hawara’s ailing mother. Wadala claimed other Sikh prisoners had received parole and had returned home without any incident, saying Hawara’s family had committed to full cooperation with the security protocols. Following the meeting, Kaur said their reception at the meeting with the CM was “warm”. Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh’s father Tarsem Singh attends the event at Darbar Sahib marking the death anniversary of Dilawar Singh, the suicide bomber who killed Punjab CM Beant Singh in 1995. (Express photo)The CM meeting Hawara’s family and supporters and meeting the Governor over the parole request marks a notable break from the stance of the AAP government, which had turned down Hawara’s parole application earlier in the year.AdvertisementJaswant Singh claimed the government was also weighing its support for parole applications for two other men convicted in the Beant assassination case: Paramjit Singh Bheora and Jagtar Singh Tara. He claimed Bheora’s file was currently with the Patiala Senior Superintendent of Police. Officials had indicated that it, along with Tara’s file, would move forward once Hawara’s case was resolved, Singh claimed.Read | Will Amritpal Singh contest Punjab polls from Malwa, Majha? Buzz grows strong“As the Punjab CM has already clarified, we have appealed to the Governor for Hawara’s parole. Now it is up to the BJP government in Delhi to clear the file. We are a democracy and it would reflect badly on us if we don’t follow the law equally for all prisoners,” AAP MLA and former minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal told The Indian Express.Dhaliwal said the party’s stand was in favour of parole for any eligible prisoner, be it Bheora or Tara. “What is politics in it? Not only Sikh prisoners, but many other prisoners across the country are still locked up in jails after completing their sentences just because they don’t have the resources to pursue their cases. They all should be given relief,” he said.Hawara in the past has not received any support from the government, including the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). In November 2015, after anti-SAD Sikh bodies called a Sarbat Khalsa gathering (assembly of the entire Sikh nation) and appointed Hawara an Akal Takht Jathedar, then Deputy CM and current SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal labelled him a “terrorist”.Rajoana’s letterThe most high-profile convict in the Beant Singh case is Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has received the death sentence. Earlier in August, he issued a letter backing the SAD while his sister Kamaldeep Kaur claimed he had been supporting the party since 2010. The Badal-led party had fielded Kamaldeep Kaur in the Sangrur by-election in 2022, but she lost. In the letter, Rajoana also targeted both Amritpal Singh and the late actor Deep Sidhu, who had founded Waris Punjab De, which, at the time, was a cultural outfit.Like Rajoana, Sikh militant Gurdeep Singh Khera — not associated with the killing of Beant Singh — also campaigned openly for the SAD during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections while out on parole, making political speeches and giving interviews in which he heavily criticised Amritpal Singh, whose rise has eroded the Badals’ Panthic vote base.In contrast, Jagtar Singh Tara’s family has backed the Waris Punjab De. At the party’s rally at the Rakhar Punia festival in Baba Bakala, near Amritsar, on August 28, his UK-based sister Sarabjit Kaur told The Indian Express that the family was behind Amritpal’s outfit. She claimed her brother was among the first to back Amritpal and questioned the government’s change in stand on Hawara’s parole.“What has changed now?” she asked, attributing this to the Assembly elections, while maintaining that parole should be treated as a prisoner’s right rather than a political favour.The Bhullar caseThe issue of Sikh militants in prison emerged as a political issue with the emergence of the AAP in Punjab’s political landscape around 2014. As the Akalis’ hold on the Panthic vote started to loosen, the AAP moved in ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections, with the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government urging the Supreme Court to commute the death sentence of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, convicted in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast case.In 2020, the Delhi government’s Sentence Review Board (SRB) thrice rejected Bhullar’s request for premature release. In 2024, after his request was rejected for the seventh consecutive time, the SAD targeted the Kejriwal government, accusing it of opposing Bhullar’s release.This marked a shift from the SAD’s position in 2009, when, in a Supreme Court affidavit, the Punjab government led by the party had branded Bhullar a “hardened and experienced criminal”. However, after the rejection of Bhullar’s 2024 application, the Akalis accused the AAP in Punjab and Delhi of conspiring to keep the militant in prison. It was a “shocking heinous crime against humanity”, Badal alleged.In response, the AAP claimed that the SRB comprised seven members, of whom six were from the SAD’s former ally BJP, while then Delhi jails minister Kailash Gehlot was the only one to back his release.Of late, the Waris Punjab De, in search of Panthic votes, has given space to the family of Indira Gandhi’s assassins. It made Satwant Singh, the son of Kehar Singh who was executed for his role in the conspiracy its first candidate for next year’s elections. Faridkot MP Sarabjit Singh Khalsa is the son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins. The outfit’s parliamentary board member Sukhwinder Singh Aghwan is the nephew of Satwant Singh, the second assassin, who was hanged along with Kehar Singh.