SIT fails to make headway in Rama Mandi firing incident

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 20

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the firing incident during the Talwandi Sabo by-poll in 2015 has failed to reach any conclusion even after passing of more than one-and-a-half years.

On the polling day, supporters of SAD candidate Jeetmohinder Singh Sidhu and Congress candidate Harminder Singh Jassi’s exchanged heated arguments and traded charges of booth capturing at a Rama Mandi polling station.

Around 4 pm, when Jassi and Jeetmohinder Sidhu reached the spot, their party workers clashed and four to five shots were fired in the air.

Jassi had accused the Akali Dal workers of firing at him but SAD leaders denied it and in turn blamed the Congress candidate’s gunmen for firing at them.

Bathinda Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar had constituted the SIT under SP (D) Swaran Singh Khanna.

He had directed the team to submit a report within an hour of the incident.

Both candidates had lodged cross complaints against each other.

The report has not found any mention and no action has been taken in this case so far.

The incident took place in August but in December, the then SSP got transferred.

The new SSPs who joined the office hardly took any interest in the case.

While talking to Bathinda Tribune, SSP Swapan Sharma said he was not aware of the incident as it took place two years ago. However he would check the details of the case, he added.