Former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and president of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Sukhbir Singh Badal was on Saturday questioned by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab police, probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident in Punjab’s Faridkot.
Mr. Badal appeared before the SIT at the Punjab Police Officers Institute here. Several senior SAD leaders also reached the Institute in support of their leader. The party said that Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sunil Jakhar and Navjot Sidhu had replaced the three-member SIT and had already indicted former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal in the Kotkapura firing case.
It said the Kotkapura incident was probably the only incident in the world in which the SIT wanted to know who ordered the firing after the relevant competent authority — the SDM — had already declared that he had ordered it. “It’s like the SIT asking the SDM not to disclose that he had ordered the firing because it wanted to blame the Badal family for the same.”
Senior SAD leaders Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Prem Singh Chandumajra, Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Daljit Singh Cheema alleged that the SIT has become a puppet in the hands of the ‘Gandhi family’ and the probe was an exercise of political vendetta. “If the SIT wanted to regain its credibility it should probe the role of Sunil Jakhar, Navjot Sidhu and Rahul Gandhi in hatching the conspiracy to frame the senior SAD leadership,” said the leaders, addressing a press conference later.
The SAD leaders said they want the SIT to examine the role of the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the incidents which led to the cases of sacrilege in 2015 as well as subsequent incidents.
The leaders alleged that the new SIT was like an old wine in a new bottle. “It is not likely to make any headway in the case as its agenda is to keep the pot boiling and not to solve anything. The probe should be handed over to the Supreme Court, which should supervise the entire investigation,” they demanded.
In 2015, incidents of sacrilege of religious text and police firing at people protesting against it took place in Faridkot. Mr. Badal was the then Deputy Chief Minister and held the portfolio of Home department. The SIT headed by Mr. Yadav was set-up by the government to investigate the two FIRs registered in connection with the Kotkapura firing incidents. The new SIT was set-up after the Punjab and Haryana High Court had in April quashed a report by the earlier SIT of Punjab Police into the same firing incident.
