Akalis flip-flop on sacrilege report; Amarinder, Jakhar too slip on facts

CHANDIGARH: The Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission on sacrilege and police firing incidents in Punjab has the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in a bind. It is both trashing the report and using it as its shield against attacks from Congress leaders.

The Akalis had rejected the one-man commission as a “Congress mouthpiece” when it was constituted in April last year. Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had refused to appear before it when summoned.

On the day the panel’s report was to be tabled in the Punjab assembly, the Akalis called it “waste paper” and dumped its copies outside the House.

Sukhbir and his MLAS also walked out of the debate the next day saying the report had “no sanctity”. So have the Akalis rejected it? Not quite.

At a press conference the same day, Sukhbir claimed neither he, Badal or any other Akali leader has been indicted in the report.

During the mock session the party held in the precincts of the state assembly, Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia had trashed the report.

CONGRESS SALVOS CONFUSE AKALIS

The Congress salvos have only added to the confusion in the Akali ranks. A day after the session ended, Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar issued his own charge-sheet against Sukhbir. He said the then home minister (Sukhbir) was the ‘General Dyer of Behbal Kalan’, where two protesters were killed in police firing on October 14, 2015.

The Akalis were quick to remind Jakhar that Sukhbir finds no mention in the report for the police firing at Behbal Kalan. “Either Jakhar has rejected the report or not read it,” SAD spokesman Mahesh Inder Grewal had said.

Interestingly, neither the report nor chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh have indicted Sukhbir, who Congress will have to contend with as Badal has passed on the party baton to the son.

At the press conference, Jakhar made no bones about his dissatisfaction with the report.

“Sukhbir’s name figures just thrice in the report. For an alleged meeting with Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim, for securing Akal Takht pardon for him in a 2007 blasphemy case and for meeting the Punjab Governor to give a memorandum alleging foreign hand behind the sacrilege incidents,” he said.

While scathing in its criticism of Badal for the firing, the report puts the home department, then under Sukhbir, in the dock only for “lack of seriousness” in probing sacrilege incidents.

Amarinder, who has vowed to go “hammer and tongs” at Badal, too slipped on facts. In an interview last week, Captain said former DGP Sumedh Saini told the commission that Badal asked him to lift the dharna forcibly. The report makes no such observation. It says Saini wanted to lift the dharna forcibly and Badal was kept in the loop on this.

AAP’S PHOOLKA QUEERS THE PITCH

As the Congress and the Akalis were using the report for scoring political points, Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka queered the pitch by asking five Punjab ministers to quit if Badal and Saini are not booked for Kotkapura firing by September 15, claiming they had said so during the debate.

Sukhbir, while addressing a workers’ meeting at Jakhar’s home turf, Abohar, dared the Congress government to accept Phoolka’s advice. “The government should either share what are the concrete, actionable parts of the so-called Ranjit Singh panel report or ask its ministers to resign en bloc by September 15,” he said. However, a day later, SAD spokesman Daljit Cheema said Phoolka had “grossly misread the report with his biased mind and deduced wild conclusions, not remotely related to its contents”.

“Phoolka has taken an unscrupulous, illegal and unconstitutional stance that the government can register a case against the former chief minister. This was least expected from a senior practising lawyer of the Supreme Court,” Cheema said.

The Akalis are now claiming that even Amarinder, at an interview, backed their party’s claim that some sacrilege incidents were the handiwork of foreign agencies such as Pakistan’s ISI. The report says a few of the nearly 162 sacrilege incidents could have been “to foment trouble” in the border state. But the SAD has found its ruse.

SUKHBIR HAD FIRST TRASHED THE REPORT, THEN CLAIMED IT DOES NOT INDICT THEM; HE HAILED PHOOLKA AND A DAY LATER, CHEEMA HIT OUT AT AAP LEADER