Punjab to take back sacrilege, police firing cases from CBI
HOUSE RESOLUTION SIT to be set up to probe these cases, move comes after demands by Cong, AAP MLAS SAD BOYCOTT Party MLAS hold ‘mock session’ outside assembly; Capt says no question of going soft on Badals
CHANDIGARH : The Punjab assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution to take back probe into sacrilege incidents of Guru Granth Sahib and police firing at protesters from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The resolution, seen as a wellorchestrated move, came after a seven-hour debate during which speaker after speaker from the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) urged chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh to punish those held guilty for sacrilege and firing incidents in the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission report that was tabled on Monday.
The CM, in his concluding speech, said he accepts the sentiments of the House and asked rural minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa to move a resolution taking back the investigation from the CBI. Amarinder said a special investigation team (SIT) will be set up to probe sacrilege and firing incidents taken back from the CBI.
It will include the first desecration case at Bargari on October 12, 2015, which the previous Badal regime had handed over to the CBI in November 2015 amid massive protests in state. The CBI has still to submit a report on its findings or progress of investigations.
Only last month, Amarinder had transferred the firing incidents at Kotkapura which injured one person and Behbal Kalan where two protesters were killed, also to the CBI. The move had not gone down well within the Congress rank and file. During the debate, the ruling Congress and the AAP, the principal opposition party, displayed unusual bonhomie and went after the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The Akalis, who are at the receiving end in the report, boycotted the debate, calling it “bogus and orchestrated by government with help of radical Sikhs to defame the party”.
At the outset, assembly speaker Rana KP Singh assured the SAD, which was allotted 14 minutes out of two hours kept for the debate based on strength of its members (14) in the House, that they will be given ample opportunity to be heard and the time can be extended till midnight.
However, the Akalis wriggled out of it by saying they be allowed to speak first. They held a parallel ‘mock session’ in the precincts of the assembly wherein they trashed the panel report. On Congress and AAP demand, the debate was
The real motive of the report is to render the Sikh community leaderless. It’s a cheap drama written, produced, directed & choreographed by Capt Amarinder Singh and his men. SUKHBIR SINGH BADAL, SAD chief
telecast live till 8 at night. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal later said the debate had proved the “collusion” between Congress and AAP.