Not afraid of IGP’s return to SIT: Badal

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Lambi (Muktsar), May 28

Former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday said he was not afraid of the return of IGP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh as a member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the sacrilege incidents and the police firing incident that rocked the state under the SAD-BJP regime.

While interacting with mediapersons during his thanksgiving tour in the Lambi Assembly segment on behalf of his daughter-in-law and third-time Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the former CM said, “We are not afraid of jail or anything else. Amarinder had slapped some false cases on us due to political vendetta during his last tenure and was doing the same now. He just wants to target us.”

Badal said he would take up the issue of demolition of centuries-old Guru Nanak Palace in Pakistan’s Punjab province with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s swearing-in ceremony. “This is an unfortunate incident. But we cannot do anything in this regard at the state-level. I will speak to Modi Sahib about this issue.”

About the power tariff hike in the state soon after the Lok Sabha elections, Badal said, “We had made the state power surplus. However, there is no responsible person to take care of the state in the present regime.”

The SAD patriarch further said that there was total lawlessness in the state and crimes were taking place daily in the state. “I have had a word with the Sarainaga village family, where a girl was stabbed multiple times on Monday. Earlier, a day before, a four-year-old girl was raped in Dhuri. A few days ago, a sacrilege incident took place in Malerkotla.”