Maur twin blasts: Deadline over, SIT fails to submit probe report in high court

BATHINDA: The new Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the Maur twin bomb blasts of January 2017 has missed the January 18 deadline to submit a probe report with the Punjab and Haryana high court. The new SIT had been set up on October 18, 2019 on court orders and superseded the earlier SIT that

DIG Ranbir Singh Khatra headed. The court had asked the new SIT to complete the investigation within three months of passing of the order and put up a challan. The SIT, however, has not yet filed the challan, while a report is also yet to be submitted in the high court. The court had also ordered that the report, after its perusal, was to be sealed in the presence of advocates. It had also directed that the report be kept in the safe custody of the registrar (judicial). It had fixed January 30 for next hearing.

Seven persons, including five children, were killed while 23 were injured in twin bomb blasts on January 31, 2017 evening at Maur, which took place in a Maruti Suzuki 800 car at an election rally by Congress candidate Harminder Singh Jassi, four days before the voting for the Punjab assembly polls. Jassi’s daughter is married to son of now jailed Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

ADGP (law and order), Ishwar Singh, heads the SIT with Rupnagar range IG Amit Parshad; Bathinda range IG Arun Kumar Mittal and Bathinda SSP Nanak Singh as members. SSP Nanak Singh said probe is on and the report is being prepared; IG Mittal said the probe was still on.