Three dera committee members declared PO
PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT RECENTLY SET ASIDE ALL THE SUMMONING ORDERS ISSUED BY THE JUDICIAL MAGISTRATE; ALSO DIRECTED SHO CONCERNED TO PROCEED AGAINST THEM UNDER SECTION 174-A OF THE IPC
FARIDKOT : A Faridkot court declared three absconding members of the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda’s national committee as proclaimed offenders (PO) in the incident involving 2015 theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of Guru Granth Sahib even as the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently set aside all the summoning orders issued by the judicial magistrate.
Three Haryana residents — Sandeep Bareta, Pardeep Kaler and Harsh Dhuri — were declared proclaimed offenders after four arrest warrants against them returned unexecuted.
“The police submitted that they received proclamation of the accused on December 12 and pasted the copies of notices at different places. The accused did not appear even as the statuary period of 30 days has expired. Therefore, this court declares Harsh Dhuri, Pardeep Kaler and Sandeep Bareta proclaimed offenders,” wrote judicial magistrate Suresh Kumar in his order.
The court also directed the station house officer (SHO) concerned to proceed against them under Section 174-A of the Indian Penal Code after registering an FIR.
The matter was adjourned to January 27 for filing the list of property of all accused under Section 83 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
On January 4, the HC had ordered the CBI to hand over all evidence and other necessary material, including case diaries, to the Punjab Police, which was further ordered to submit a supplementary chargesheet in the Faridkot court, which would then examine reports of the two agencies.
Justice Anmol Rattan Singh had set aside summoning of the petitioner and other accused as well as any other orders that would have been subsequently passed by the Faridkot court.
On July 6 last year, the police’s special investigation team (SIT) probing the sacrilege cases named jailed dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, Dhuri, Kler and Bretta as accused in the bir theft case and also filed a chargesheet against seven other dera followers.
Bareta, Kler and Dhuri were also named as accused in the Malke and Gurusar cases.
The SIT claims that the three are the key link in Punjab’s three sacrilege incidents that sparked off state-wide protests in 2015. “The instructions to execute sacrilege at Bargari, Moga and Gurusar were given by Bareta, Kler and Dhuri to the district dera committee members,” claims SIT.