NIA probe into Babbar Khalsa funds hits UK’s death penalty wall

Shaurya Karanbir Gurung

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 14

India has been unable to complete its investigation into a terrorist funding case related to the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) for the past one-and-a-half years because the United Kingdom has refused to share evidence on the accused based in the UK.

The UK, which has abolished the death penalty, has demanded that India must first give an undertaking on not imposing the death penalty on the accused.

The case gains importance in the light of the recommendation of the Law Commission of India that the death penalty should be retained only for terrorism-related cases in India.

The problem is that 140 countries, including the ones in Europe, have either abolished the death penalty or placed a temporary prohibition on it.

“When a country requests the European nations for evidence through a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), they demand that the requesting country must give an undertaking that it will not impose death penalty, even if the charged Sections provide for death penalty,” explained a National Investigation Agency (NIA) official.

The NIA is India’s primary terrorism investigation agency and is facing a similar problem during its probe into a case related to the Khalistan terrorist group BKI.

The NIA had registered the case in August 2012 based on the allegations that Punjab-based BKI operatives were receiving money from UK-based BKI operatives Balbir Singh Bains and Joga Singh and its front organisations including the Sikh Organisation for Prisoner Welfare (SOPW), Akhand Kirtanee Jatha (AKJ) and Khalsa Aid to commit terrorist acts in India.

The SOPW in a statement issued in October 2012 had refuted these allegations.

The NIA said that the money was being distributed to sleeper cells, jailed terrorists and families of terrorists in Punjab.

About one-and-a-half years ago, the Indian side of the case investigation was complete and the probe in relation to the UK remained.

India had sent a request for obtaining evidence through MLAT to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the UK. The UK authorities demanded that first India must give an undertaking that it would not give death penalty to the two accused Balbir and Joga.

A series of dialogues followed with India trying to convince the UK to make an exception in this case as it is related to terrorism.

About two months ago, the matter was sent to the Ministry of External Affairs to take up the matter with the Foreign Commonwealth Office in the UK.

“For one-and-a-half years, the investigation of the case has remained incomplete as we have not received the evidence from the UK,” said the official.

Section 34(c) of India’s Extradition Act, 1962, states that when a fugitive criminal, who has committed an offence punishable with death, is extradited to India from a country whose laws don’t impose death penalty for the offence, then India will instead give life imprisonment to that person.

An undertaking, as demanded by the UK, can only be given during the extradition stage and not during MLAT, according to the NIA.

“MLAT is the initial stage of the investigation and we are not sure which way the investigation will go or whether the accused will be held guilty or not. We have informed our counterparts that after we file the chargesheet in the case and if there is a need for extradition, then we will give the undertaking. How can we say whether death penalty will be imposed or not! It is premature and we will have to see the evidence first,” said the official.

Currently, the BKI case is the only case of the NIA wherein the agency is facing such a problem. And the demand of such undertakings can create hurdles in the agency’s investigations into other similar cases.