8 MORE DERA MEN DETAINED
The SIT of Punjab Police have rounded up 8 more Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda followers in conenction with the 2015 Bargari sacrilege incident..
FARIDKOT: A day after the special investigation team (SIT) of Punjab Police nabbed three Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda followers suspected to be prime accused in the 2015 Bargari sacrilege incident, the team rounded up eight more persons on Sunday.
Though SIT head Ranbir Singh Khatra did not respond to repeated calls, a senior police official, who didn’t want to be named, confirmed that eight more persons have been rounded up. These include Ranjit Singh, Randeep Singh and Pawandeep Singh, brothers of Baazigar Basti, Faridkot, Ajaib Singh of Mai Dogri area, Faridkot, Nishan Singh and Sandeep Kumar Bittu of Kotkapura, Baljit Singh of Sikhan Wala village and Nirmal Singh of Bhana village.
Om Prakash, father of three brothers, said police came to their house and arrested his sons. “If we are Sirsa dera followers, it doesn’t mean that we will do wrong,” he said.
A member of the SIT, who is not authorised to speak to the media, said they were close to cracking the case.
On Friday, the SIT rounded up Sunny Kanda, member of Sirsa dera block committee, his brother Sukhwinder Singh and
their cousin Jaggi Mansa from a house on the Muktsar road in Kotkapura. Mohinder Pal Bittu, a state committee member of the dera was nabbed from Palampur in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday.
Hailing from Kotkapura, Bittu had been absconding since August 2017 following the conviction of dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim. To evade his arrest, Bittu had allegedly been living in Palampur and running a small restaurant. He was nabbed following a tip-off.
The sacrilege incident triggered a statewide outrage after a ‘bir’ (copy of Guru Granth Sahib) was stolen from a gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on June 1, 2015. On October 12, 2015, torn pages of the ‘bir’ were found scattered in front of a gurdwara at Bargari village.
A massive protest was held in June 2016 after a dera follower, Gurdev Singh, was gunned down at his shop at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village of Faridkot by an unidentified man.
The state government is under immense pressure since the start of an indefinite protest by Sikh radical leaders at Bargari last week. They are demanding the arrest of the accused of sacrilege incidents and the police officials responsible for the killing of two Sikh protesters at Behbal Kalan in October 2015.