Bitta welcomes Supreme Court verdict on Bhullar

New Delhi  :  Welcoming the Supreme Court verdict rejecting the mercy plea of Khalistani terrorist Devenderpal Singh Bhullar who had targeted him in a bomb attack in 1993, then Youth Congress leader M.S. Bitta Friday alleged no one – including his Congress party – had come forward to help him.

Bhullar, convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for carrying out a bomb blast outside the Youth Congress office in 1993, had sought commutation of his death penalty to life sentence on the ground that there was inordinate delay by the president on his mercy plea.

He had approached the Supreme Court in 2011. The apex court dismissed his plea Friday.

“Bhullar’s file kept moving inside the home ministry, law ministry and the Delhi government for 15 years… I didn’t expect Bhullar will get the death sentence,” said Bitta, the prime target in the attack.

He also alleged that the Sheila Dikshit government had tried to help Bhullar by declaring him “mental”.

“Today’s decision was very crucial. We bow before the court,” Bitta said.

“None was with me. The media also left me. I always asked why they (the then government) had withdrawn my security cover… there was also an attack on me in 1992. My party and my leadership got frightened and left me to fend for myself,” he said.

“I will also fight for death penalty to the convicts in the assassination case of Rajiv Gandhi. This is my next target,” he added.

Bitta demanded that leaders who don’t face any life threat should have their security cover withdrawn.

Bitta claimed that despite his association with the Congress, some in the party had worked against him and asked him to back down in the case.

“Ambika Soni had called me and told me to back down in the Bhullar case,” he alleged, and also questioned why Kapil Sibal had represented Bhullar in the case in the past.

The 1993 blast at the Youth Congress office in Delhi left nine people dead.