PATHANKOT: For Jaswinder Singh and his wife Gurmeet Kaur, every passing day has become a painful wait for news about their son Baljinder Singh, a truck driver who, according to the family, has been sentenced to death by a Saudi Arabian court in a drug-related case.Sitting at their home in Sujanpur, the elderly couple breaks down while appealing to the Punjab and central governments to intervene before it is too late. Their repeated plea is simple: help bring their son home and give him a chance to prove his innocence.“He is our only support. We cannot imagine losing him like this,” his father, Jaswinder Singh, said on Tuesday, his voice breaking as he urged the governments to take up the matter with Saudi authorities.The family claims Baljinder, who had been driving trucks in Dubai for nearly a decade, never knowingly carried any narcotic substance. They said an acquaintance had asked him to take a packet to Saudi Arabia, claiming it contained medicines meant for his sick father.According to Jaswinder, his son was initially reluctant and refused to take the package. The family says he eventually agreed after being shown a video of the allegedly ill elderly man and believing he was helping someone in need.The packet was subsequently detected during checks at the Dubai-Saudi border, following which Baljinder was arrested, the family said. He has remained in custody for nearly three years.His parents insist that Baljinder, an Amritdhari Sikh, had no association with drugs or criminal activity and was allegedly unaware of what the package contained.For Gurmeet Kaur, the ordeal has become almost unbearable. She breaks down while speaking about her son, pleading with the state and central governments not to let the family lose him.She said Baljinder is the main breadwinner for his wife, two children and ageing parents.With hope now resting on government intervention, Jaswinder and Gurmeet have appealed to Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and the Centre, particularly the Ministry of External Affairs, to urgently pursue the matter diplomatically and seek relief for their son.“We only want our son back,” said the grieving parents.
