India puts on hold execution of Sikh radical

India has put on hold the execution of a Sikh radical for his role in the assassination of a state chief minister by a suicide bomber in 1995, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday. Balwant Singh Rajoana was scheduled to be hanged Saturday at Patiala Jail in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab, but his execution was stayed pending an appeal made by the state government to the president. "The execution has been stayed while the appeal is under consideration with the president," home ministry spokeswoman Ira Joshi told AFP. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal filed the appeal Wednesday when he met with President Pratibha Patil, as the northern state saw widespread strikes over what would have been the first execution carried out in India since 2004. Sikh organisations, politicians and rights groups all called for the sentence to be commuted, although Rajoana himself has made it clear he would not appeal for clemency. A strike call by Sikh groups and opposition parties saw many businesses shut down Wednesday across Punjab, while hundreds of protesters wearing saffron turbans gathered at Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Rajoana was sentenced to death in 2007 for his role in the 1995 assassination of the then Punjab chief minister, Beant Singh, who was killed by a suicide bomber along with 15 other people. Rajoana had acted as a standby assassin in case the initial attempt failed.