Chandigarh 30 August : Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal will not appear before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Tuesday in the 2015 Kotkapura firing incident. “Sukhbir Badal has to appear before the court in Zira (town),” said an SAD spokesperson, adding that Badal has not been served with a summons to be questioned by the SIT.
In a major political move in a major political shift, the SIT investigating the firing case arising from the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib had summoned the the former Deputy Chief Minister as well as the current Shiromani President of Akali Dal Sukhbir Badal in Chandigarh.
The SIT headed by the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) L.K.Yadav had previously interrogated the former Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini.
Saini was removed from the police chief’s post by the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in 2015 after events of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and subsequent violence in the state in which the police force was accused of excessive behaviour that resulted in two people dead.
Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) who was the head of the commission created by the former Congress government to investigate the alleged instances of sacrilege of Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the subsequent police firing on protesters, has remanded the former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as the SAD patriarch, and later DGP Saini in the dock.
Additionally, he castigated the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda, whose chief and self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for the rape of two of his followers, as well as the possibility of a life sentence for journalist’s murder, in connection with the act of sacrilege.
Justice Singh made these comments in January following the release of his book of 423 pages titled “The Sacrilege” that was based on his investigation during the time he was the head of the commission that was set up by the government.
“Inference on the basis of evidence and materials is in the direction of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as well as the Director General of Police (DGP) Saini for not being active in the in the role (with the subsequent police shooting of protesters following the incident of sacrilege),” Justice Singh had stated to IANS at the book’s launch here.
The act of sacrilege occurred in Behbal Kalan village of Faridkot district.
The subsequent police firing at protesters that killed two was covered into the Congress against the SAD-BJP combined government in the 2017 election for the assembly.
Even in the 2022 elections the scandals continued to shake the political landscape of the state, as successive governments are being criticized for not doing justice in the cases.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on April 9, 2021 dismissed the police SIT report which issued an unclean chit to Badals and ordered the state government to put an entirely new team.
The high court not only dismissed the investigation but also raised questions about the procedure and ordered the reconstitution of the SIT conducting the investigation with no IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who is now an AAP legislator.
Following the court’s direction the then Congress government headed by Captain Amarinder Singh constituted another SIT on May 7, to look into the incident.
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