'Don't know what intel agencies are doing. Was acquitted by SC in 2017'

LALTON KHURD (LUDHIANA): One of the Sikh detainees who has been approved for release by the Union home affairs ministry, Harjinder Singh Kali , is already out of jail for the last two and half years. He was acquitted by the Supreme Court . A farmer by profession, Harjinder makes his living cultivating his three-acre land.

"I heard yesterday that my name is in the list of those who are being freed by the government, but I was acquitted by the Supreme Court (SC) on January 12, 2017 and since then I am out. Not only me but 10 of us, including one housed in Ludhiana jail, two in Nabha jail and seven in Kapurthala jail, were acquitted on the same day by the SC," said Harjinder Singh, a farmer by profession.

"I don't know what their intelligence agencies are doing, if they do not know this fact." He added that he was arrested in the case of Asia's biggest bank robbery in 1987 and was convicted by TADA court for it on November 20, 2012, but was acquitted of many terrorism related cases registered against him.

"As we were not eligible to file case in higher court after being convicted in the case in 2012, we moved SC and fought the case there. A three-judge bench acquitted us within three minutes of hearing the case in 2017. However, I had to sell around .75 acres of land to bear the cost of fighting the case in the court and spent around Rs 40 lakh for that," said Harjinder, who claims to have suffered heart attack and paralysis attack after being arrested.

"I had already spent more than seven and half years in Nabha jail, I was convicted by TADA court for 10 years. I had to come on parole to attend my younger daughter's marriage. My elder daughter and son (who works in the Philippines) and wife Rajinder Kaur also had to suffer a lot, as I was moving in and out of jail from 1987 to 2017."