Twenty years after the brutal assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh security guards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, Punjab, on January 30 will witness Sarabjit Singh, the son of one of the assassins, contesting the Assembly polls 2012, as an independent candidate.
Beant Singh’s son Sarabjit says he’s in poll fray for he wants to serve the people and see that the Congress lose. The ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine kept him at a distance when it came to allotting party ticket. But, that didn’t deter Sarabjit from pursuing his political ambition. In the previous elections, he was the candidate of the SAD (Amritsar) which fielded him from Bhadaur. He lost. The election, this time, is even tougher for Sarabjit as he faces stiff competition not just from the Congress but also from Nirmal Singh, a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Singh is the candidate of the SAD-BJP alliance from Bassi Pathana.
Although Sarabjit does not denounce the circumstances and context in which his father chose to kill the former prime minister, yet, he “detests any form of violence”. Sarabjit believes his father, a Delhi police sub-inspector, killed Mrs Gandhi to avenge the Army action on the Golden Temple in June 1984. Country’s ex-PM was gunned down by her two bodyguards on October 31 morning in 1984 at her official residence at Sadarjung Road in New Delhi. The Sikh guards opened fire at her without any provocation. Beant was shot dead at the assassination site by other bodyguards.
Satwant was arrested and was sentenced to death in January 1989 along with the main conspirator of this execution Kehar Singh. Sarabjit, who believes his father is a martyr, was six-years-old when the incident occurred.