SIT files chargesheet against four dera men
FARIDKOT: The Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 sacrilege incidents on Tuesday filed a chargesheet in a Faridkot court against four Dera Sacha Sauda followers for pasting derogatory posters near the gurdwaras of Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala villages in Faridkot district on September 24, 2015.
However, the SIT has not named Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim in this case so far. Sources said the SIT is looking for clinching evidence before naming the dera head.
3 absconding dera members named conspirators
The chargesheet was filed in the court of judicial magistrate Tarjani against Sukhjinder Singh, alias Sunny, and Ranjit Singh, alias Bhola, both residents of Kotkapura, Shakti Singh of Daggu Romana village and Baljit Singh of Sikhanwala village in Faridkot district.
The SIT has also named dera follower Mohinder Pal Singh Bittu, who was killed in Nabha jail, and three absconding members of the Sirsa-based dera’s national committee as conspirators in the case. They are Sandeep Bareta, Pardeep Kaler and Harsh Dhuri, all residents of Haryana.
The challan was filed under Sections 295-A (malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 506 (criminal intimidation), 120-B (being party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) and 153-A (promoting enmity between groups on basis of religion, race, birthplace, residence or language) of the Indian Penal Code.
The SIT said that Sukhjinder wrote the posters and pasted two of them on the gate of the gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala along with Ranjit. “Shakti brought A-4 size papers and the marker from the stationary shop of Gopal at Bargari. He along with Baljit pasted the poster at the Bargari gurdwara,” the SIT found.
In the three posters, it was threatened that the “bir (copy)” of Guru Granth Sahib stolen from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on June 1, 2015, would be torn if the Gurmeet Ram Rahim film Messenger of God (MSG)-2 was not allowed to be released in Punjab.
Court dismisses plea
The move comes a day after the Punjab and Haryana high court dismissed Sukhjinder’s plea, challenging the SIT’S action of resending his handwriting samples to match it with the writings on the derogatory posters at Bargari village to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh. During the July 9 hearing the court had taken up Sukhjinder’s plea and restrained the SIT from submitting challan. The restraining order was lifted after his plea was dismissed.
On June 1 this year, the SIT collected samples of Sukhjinder to match them with the writing on the derogatory posters, claiming that one of the posters was written by him. The CFSL report is pending.
Probing 3 linked cases
The SIT led by then deputy inspector general (DIG) Ranbir Singh Khatra had in 2018 found that the handwriting of the dera followers matched with the ones on the posters. But the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in its closure report filed in a Mohali court in July 2019, said the handwriting samples of the accused dera followers it had sent to the CFSL did not match with the ones on the posters.
The SIT, led by IG SPS Parmar, is probing three interlinked sacrilege cases. The first case pertains to the theft of “bir” from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on June 1, 2015. The second is putting up of posters at Bargari on September 25, 2015, and in the third torn pages of the “bir” were found scattered at Bargari gurdwara on October 12, 2015.