Sacrilege incidents: Punjab SIT questions dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim for over 7 hours

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 8

About six years after the controversial Dera Sirsa was accused of carrying out the series of sacrilege incidents in Punjab, two members of a Special Investigation Team set up to inquire into the cases on Monday questioned the Dera head and rape, murder convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim in Sunaria jail in Rohtak, Haryana, for seven-and-a-half hours.

SIT head IG SPS Parmar while declining to comment on the responses given by the Dera head said the questions focussed on the depth of the conspiracy and the genesis of the issue.

“We went deep into the whole alleged conspiracy. Posed more than 100 questions to him from 10.30 am to 6 pm on the range of issues around the three FIRs of the sacrilege incidents. The report would be submitted to the High Court shortly,” he told The Tribune.

Besides Parmar, other SIT members who carried out the questioning included SSP Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar, DSP Lakhvir Singh and Inspector Dalbir Singh. The Haryana police had erected barricades on various routes to the jail to keep Dera followers, Sikh protesters and media at bay.

The main focus of questions was the unsolved case of theft of a bir of Guru Granth Sahib on June 1, 2015 from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala. The second FIR was regarding the pasting of posters in different villages amounting to sacrilege of the Sikh Holy Book. The third was on throwing the ‘angs’ of the Holy Book at various places.

In the latter two cases, the SIT has already submitted challans accusing a number of followers of the Dera Sirsa for carrying out the sacrilege incidents. Key accused Mohinder Pal Bittu was killed by other inmates in a Nabha Jail over his role in the incidents.

Later, a CBI inquiry team had absolved the dera followers of the charges saying there was no conclusive evidence against them. However, the Punjab government had not accepted the CBI closure report on the incidents and decided to carry out an investigation by the Punjab Police.

It has been alleged that the Dera men stole the Bir and later tore the pages in order to take revenge from Sikhs for defamatory actions and speeches against the Dera head. The Dera head was allegedly close to political leaders, especially the Akalis besides some film stars as well.

This is the first time the SIT was able to meet the Dera head for questioning. Earlier, an SIT, including IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap, as the lead investigator had tried to get permission from the Haryana government for the purpose.

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