Eight years on, Maur blast victims’ kin await justice

It’s been eight years since six persons, including three children, were killed in an explosion near a Congress election rally at Maur Mandi in Bathinda.

However, justice continues to elude the families who lost their loved ones in the incident. The families held a bhog on Friday, the anniversary of the incident.

The police are yet to arrest the three persons suspected to have been involved in the case. “The state government, the district administration, and the police are dragging their feet on the case. The blast was forgotten as soon as the elections were over,” a member of the Maur Bomb Blast Virodhi Sangharsh Committee said.

The committee has been part of the families’ struggle for justice.

Committee co-convenor Devraj said, “It is highly condemnable that even after eight years of the incident, the police failed to arrest anyone.”

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a senior police officer had claimed that two people had driven an explosive-laden car from Haryana’s Sirsa. An unexploded pressure cooker was also found at the blast site.

Investigators later claimed that they found a possible link of the blast with Sirsa’s Dera Sacha Sauda headed by Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who is undergoing sentence in a rape case.

They named three suspects, Gurtej Singh Kala, who was allegedly incharge of the workshop where the explosives were fitted into the car, Amrik Singh, a security guard from Sangrur, and Avtar Singh, an electrician originally from Kurukshetra, who allegedly helped fix the batteries used in the bomb.

In May 2018, a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court asked for the investigation to be handed over to the National Investigating Agency or the CBI.

In October 2019, the HC asked the state police to institute a new SIT for the probe. The new team headed by ADGP Ishwar Singh began investigating the dera’s alleged role in the incident.