Six people held guilty in Beant Singh murder case

New Delhi: A court in Chandigarh has pronounced its judgement in the Beant Singh Murder case.

Six people have been held guilty while one person Navdeep Singh has been acquitted. The Congress Chief Minister was assassinated at the high security Punjab secretariat complex in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, by a human bomb, Dilwar Singh.

Twelve other people had also lost their lives in the attack.

Jagtar Singh Hawara, Balwant Singh, Shamsher Singh, Lakhwinder Singh and Gurmeet Singh were convicted under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC while Naseeb Singh has been held guilty under the Explosives Substances Act by the special court of additional sessions judge Ravi Kumar Sondhi.

The order has been pronounced at the high security Burail jail, CBI counsel S K Saxena said outside the jail premises.

The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence to the six convicts on Saturday.

Investigations into the case had revealed that the blast was carried out by a suicide bomber - Dilawar Singh.

A chargesheet was filed in the court in May 1996. The hearing for the case was initially held seven days in a month. However, for the past couple of years, the hearing had been held daily in the jail premises.

The court examined and cross-examined around 250 witnesses during the course of trial.

The final arguments in the case ended earlier this month only.

(With agency inputs)