CHANDIGARH: A special investigation team (SIT) of the Punjab Police is expected to ask 120 questions to both former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and former deputy chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal as they have been summoned in connection with the sacrilege incidents in the state in 2015.
Highly placed sources said that the SIT had prepared a list of 120 questions to be asked to both the Badals, as Badal (Senior) has been asked to appear before SIT on November 16, while his son Sukhbir Singh Badal has been summoned on November 19. When they will be asked questions by the officials of the SIT it will all be video graphed so that nobody can raise any `objections' afterwards.
While Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar who has also been summoned is yet no clarified that he will present himself before SIT on November 21 or not at the Circuit House in Amritsar. It is learnt that Parkash Singh Badal will be asked that as chief minister did he give orders of firing or not on the protestors at Behbal Kalan. Also at that time which all police officers were in his contact.
While Sukhbir Badal will be asked as being the home minister of the state what action he took on the incidents of sacrilege before the incidents of firing and after that. Also which officers were in his touch and what action he took or not on the dera sacha sauda followers who were involved in these incidents. Sources said that Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar will be asked that if he had arranged for a meeting between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and Sukhbir Singh Badal at his Juhu flat in Mumbai or not.
It is after fourteen years that the Badal father-son duo will present themselves before a Special Investigating Team. It was in 2004 when both of them had appeared before SIT in the cases relating to amassing disproportionate assets during his tenure as chief minister and misuse of official machinery. At that time also Capt Amarinder Singh was the chief minister.
Mired in controversy over arranging alleged meeting of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and Sukhbir Singh Badal, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has denied holding any such meeting. He claimed that he never met Ram Rahim and said that he would not do anything which might hurt the sentiments of Punjabis.
Akshay twitted, "It has come to my knowledge that some rumours and false statements are being loosely made on social media about my involvement with a person named Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in context with a fictitious meeting involving Sukhbir Singh Badal. With all humidity I would like to state the following facts: I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, in my life, anywhere.''
The Badals decided to join the investigation amid their party's consistent demand for a probe into the sacrilege incidents by a sitting Supreme Court judge. The SAD had rejected earlier the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on the sacrilege incidents, terming it as the 'Congress-sponsored and biased'.
Also earlier both Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal had refused to appear before the Ranjit Singh Commission. The SIT had examined over eight people till now of these 50 persons from the public and 30 police officers.
It had examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, the then IG Bathinda, IGP Paramraj Singh Umaranangal, the then Ludhiana police commissioner, IGP Amar Singh Chahal, then Ferozepur range DIG, besides former DC MS Jaggi, former SSP SS Mann, former Faridkot SDM VK Syal and former Kotkapura MLA Mantar Singh Brar. The first incident of sacrilege in this series took place in June 2015 at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in Faridkot district of the state. Then on October 12, 110 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were found desecrated at the Bargari village and after that number of incidents of desecration took place across the state in the following days.