Bargari sacrilege: SIT arrests 4 dera followers

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 9

A special investigation team (SIT) of the Punjab Police, probing the three-year-old sacrilege incidents at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala and Bargari villages of Faridkot, has rounded up four Dera Sacha Sauda followers, suspecting them to be the prime accused in the case.

The SIT has nabbed Mohinder Pal Bittu, state committee member of the dera, from Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. Belonging to Kotkapura town of Faridkot and owner of a bakery shop, Bittu had been absconding since August 2017 following the conviction of dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

Three more persons were arrested from Kotkapura in the wee hours of Saturday. They are dairy owner Sunny Kanda, his brother Sukhpreet Singh and Jaggi, their relative from Mansa.

A team of six policemen, deployed at Kanda’s house on the Muktsar road in Kotkapura, did not allow anyone to meet the family.

“As sacrilege is a highly sensitive religious issue and any suspect in this case is prone to attack, security has been deployed at Kanda’s house as a preventive measure,” said a senior police officer.

Bittu was one of the 150 dera followers booked by the Panchkula police for violence following the dera head’s conviction.

To evade arrest, Bittu had been staying in Palampur for the past nine months.

While SIT head DIG Ranbir Singh Khatra declined to share information about the arrest, Bittu’s younger brother Surinder Kumar said his family had gone to Palampur to meet him, but he was found missing. “On June 7, we lodged a missing person complaint with the Palampur police,” said Surinder. “My brother is being made a scapegoat to pacify the protesters,” he alleged.

SSP Nanak Singh said as the SIT was handling the case so the Faridkot police had no information about the arrests.

Sources said the state government was under immense pressure since the start of the dharna by Sikh radicals at Bargari last week. They were demanding the arrest of the accused in sacrilege incidents and police officials responsible for the killing of two Sikh protesters at Behbal Kalan in October 2015.

In June 2016, an unidentified man had opened fire at dera follower Gurdev Singh at his shop in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village of Faridkot, following which a protest, led by Bittu, was held.

On June 1, 2015, a ‘bir’ was stolen from the gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala. On October 12, 2015, torn pages of the ‘bir’ were found scattered in front of a gurdwara at Bargari village.

One of the accused held from HP

• The SIT has nabbed Mohinder Pal Bittu, state committee member of the dera, from Palampur in Himachal 
• Belonging to Kotkapura town of Faridkot and owner of a bakery shop, Bittu had been absconding since August 2017 following the conviction of dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
• Three more persons were held from Kotkapura — dairy owner Sunny Kanda, his brother Sukhpreet Singh and Jaggi, their relative from Mansa