CHANDIGARH: A Special Investigation Team has summoned Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on August 30 for questioning in the 2015 police firing on a crowd in a desecration case.
Badal was the deputy CM-cum-home minister in SAD-BJP government when incidents of desecration of religious texts and subsequent police firing on protestors took place at Kotkapura in Faridkot district.
The SIT had questioned Badal in June last year for the same incident. Many senior SAD leaders, including Bikram Singh Majithia, Balwinder Singh Bhundar, Daljit Singh Cheema and NK Sharma had gone to the institute to show support for the leader.
The SIT, led by Additional DGP LK Yadav, had earlier questioned former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in the case. Badal, however, said he was yet to receive the notice and promised he would cooperate in the probe. “The Congress and the current AAP government have played politics over the issue,” he said.
The notice came days after the Faridkot district and sessions court said the proceedings in the Behbal Kalan firing case will not move further in the trial court until the charge sheet in the Kotkapura firing case is filed by the SIT.
This will be the first time during the AAP regime when Badal will be quizzed in the Kotkapura firing case. Two SITs have earlier questioned him thrice in this case. The SIT led by Additional DGP LK Yadav, which was formed last year in May, had questioned Badal the following month. Another SIT formed earlier under former IGP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who is now an AAP MLA, had questioned him in November 2018.
Saini was removed as the Punjab DGP by then CM Parkash Singh Badal in 2015 following incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and subsequent violence in which the police was accused of excesses that left two people dead.