Parkash Singh Badal summoned by SIT in 2015 police firing case
CHANDIGARH: The special investigation team probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident has summoned former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal to appear before it for questioning on June 16.
Badal was the chief minister of Punjab when the police opened fire on protesters on October 14, 2015, killing two and injuring others.
According to a lawyer, who was part of the defence team, the nonagenarian leader has been asked “to appear in person with the relevant record before the Special Investigation Team on date 16.06.2021 at 10:30 am at PSPCL, Rest House, Phase-8 SAS Nagar (Mohali)” for investigation of the cases.
Reacting to the summons, Harcharan Bains, principal advisor to the Shiromani Akali Dal president, said, “We will fully cooperate with the SIT.”
Badal was earlier questioned in 2018 by the previous SIT probing the matter. He had then said the SIT probe was “politically motivated” and an attempt to defame him.
The Punjab government had set up an SIT, headed by ADGP L K Yadav after the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected the probe of an earlier SIT and gave a clean chit to the Badals.
The high court on April 9 this year had quashed a report by an earlier Punjab Police SIT into the 2015 firing at people protesting in Kotkapura over the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Faridkot district.
The court had then directed the state government to set up a new SIT, without Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, the Indian Police Service officer who was part of the earlier team. Singh later took voluntary retirement after the court order.
Police also opened fire at a similar demonstration in Behbal Kalan, also in Faridkot, where two people were killed. A separate probe is underway in that case.
The new SIT is investigating the two FIRS registered on October 14, 2015 and August 7, 2018 in connection with the Kotkapura incident.
Meanwhile, Congress MP Partap Singh Bajwa on Sunday dubbed the summoning of Badal as a step in the right direction.
“The need of the hour is to conduct a fair investigation wherein the role of the then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the then Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini are brought out,” said Bajwa in a statement.