Come clean on Sirsa dera’s involvement in Maur blasts, Sukhbir asks Cong govt
JALANDHAR : Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday said the Congress government should come clean on the involvement of Dera Sacha Sauda in the twin blasts at Bathinda’s Maur in January 2017 even as police had named three sect followers as accused in the case.
“If the dera followers are involved, the government should make it public but it is silent over the issue,” Sukhbir said on sidelines of a SAD protest against non-distribution of funds under the post-matric scholarship scheme in Jalandhar.
Sukhbir said the dera people involved in the blasts should be arrested.
The blasts occurred during campaign for the assembly polls with Congress candidate Harminder Jassi, a relative of dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, having a narrow escape. Seven people, five of them children, had lost their lives. Jassi’s daughter is married to the son of the dera chief. Gurmeet, convicted of rape and sexual harassment, is in jail.
A special investigating team (SIT) probing the case had in March named dera follower Avtar Singh of Massimajra village near Pehowa in Haryana. Earlier, it held Gurtej Kala of Dabwali in Sirsa, Haryana, and Amrik Singh of Bhikhi in Mansa district responsible for the blasts.
All the accused are absconding and a local court has declared them proclaimed offenders (POs).
When asked that he then as deputy chief minister who also held home department portfolio had blamed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Sikh radicals for the blasts, Sukhbir said, “It was on the basis of preliminary information I got at the time. You cannot be clear in just two days after the blasts.”
Sukhbir blamed the Congress government for denying education to Dalit students by refusing to release ₹444 crore received from the Centre for the scholarship scheme and announced to launch a state-wide agitation to force the ruling party to give the Dalits their due.
“It is clear that the Congress wants to disrupt peace in the state like it did in 1984. They want to create rift between different religious groups and not speaking on the development issues.”
He, however, left in a huff when he was asked a question related to sacrilege incidents in 2015.