HC seeks fresh status report by Sept 25

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday directed special investigation team (SIT) chief Ranbir Singh Khatra to submit a fresh status report in the Maur Mandi blasts by September 25.

The twin blasts occurred reported on January 31 ahead of the February 4 assembly elections in Punjab last year. Seven persons were killed in the blasts.

Miffed over the pace of investigation, the bench of justice Krishna Murari and justice Arun Palli was categorically told Khatra, who is a deputy inspector general of police, not to merely give assurances and produce results. Khatra was present in the court.

The court was hearing a petition by one Gurjeet Singh Patran who had demanded that probe be handed over to the National Investigating agency or the Central Bureau of Investigation. Since the time the names of some Dera Sacha Sauda followers have cropped up, the probe has got slowed down, petitioner had alleged.

The SIT has told the court that three persons — Gurtej Singh, Amrik Singh and Avtar Singh — have been named as accused but are on the run. They were named in February 2018. The process to declare them proclaimed offender was underway, the court was told.

However, as per the petitioner, the vehicle used in the blasts was assembled in a workshop of the Dera Sacha Sauda at Sirsa and two of those identified as accused were close associates of dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who is undergoing a jail term in two rape cases. The petitioner had also questioned the role of SIT as it failed to interrogate Ram Rahim in the case, which it was claimed that was a part of a deep-rooted conspiracy to get sympathy votes in the assembly elections.