Bathinda: Freed, Manjit Singh Dhaner gets hero's welcome on road to home

BATHINDA: Farm activist Manjit Singh Dhaner was accorded a hero's welcome en route to his native village, Dhaner, and Barnala town on Friday.

Hundreds of activists joined the convoy to his native village in cars, jeeps, tractors, motorcycles and even scooters. Dhaner was released from Barnala jail on Thursday night, after a notification issued by jails department principal secretary R Venkat Ratnam reached the prison in the evening.

Punjab governor V P Singh Badnore had granted remission to Dhaner on Wednesday and sent the file to the state government for issuing the notification. Manjit (62) had been imprisoned since September 30, after the Supreme Court dismissed his application against a Punjab and Haryana high court order on September 3 which directed him to surender before court in four weeks.

Manjit had been convicted in the murder of Dalip Singh of Mehal Kalan on March 3, 2001. He was sentenced to life imprisonment along with three others by the Barnala district court on March 30, 2005. He was provided remission by governor in July 2007, but it was set aside by the high court in 2008. He challenged this in Supreme Court.

Activists of various farm, labour, employee and student organisations, and a large number of women, assembled outside the jail where they renewed their resolve to keep on fighting against what they described as injustices.

Manjit was taken home in an open jeep. His supporters stopped at a number of places on the way to his village to celebrate his release.

"The truth has won again. People have given me so much regard, so now I will fight against injustices with renewed vigour. The state government might have thought that by putting me behind bars, it could stop farm organisations from undertaking bigger protests, but it was mistaken and has now seen how thousands of activists come to roads to oppose any wrongdoing," said Dhaner.