SIT questions Sukhbir Badal for 3 hours in Kotkapura police firing case

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 12

SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal was today questioned here for three hours by ADGP LK Yadav-led Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the case related to 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident.

Sukhbir, who was the Deputy Chief Minister and also held home affairs portfolio, appeared at the Punjab Police Officers’ Institute here with relevant records.

Sources said Badal was asked about his location at the time of incident, who had ordered for the police firing, officer who intimated him about incidents and under which circumstances instructions were issued for police firing.

A scripted plan

It is a plan scripted by the state government on the pattern of its predecessors to keep the police firing and sacrilege cases hanging in balance to extract political mileage. —Sukhraj Singh, Behbal Kalan protester

Earlier, the SIT had summoned Sukhbir on August 30 and September 14, but the former Deputy CM had not “received” summons as he was said to be out of the country.

Meanwhile, protesters, who are sitting on a protest dharna at Behbal Kalan for over past one year, termed the appearance of SAD chief before SIT on Monday as a pre-emptive move of the state government to counter the gathering of Sikh organisations at Behbal Kalan on December 15.

Sukhraj Singh, son of deceased Krishan Bhagwan Singh, who was killed in alleged police firing at Behbal Kalan on October 14, 2015, alleged every time when there was a state-level gathering of Sikh leaders and protesters in the last year, the state government asked SITs, probing Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing cases, to summon a senior Akali leader or a police officer to appear before the investigative teams to give an impression of making further investigation ‘seriously’ and diffuse the situation.

Once the protest day passed away, investigations were put on a backburner, he alleged.

Now, when there was a state-level gathering of Sikh protesters on December 15 and no leader of the state government had courage to reach Behbal Kalan to make another promise about the completion of investigation and prosecution of culprits, the ruling dispensation was projecting summoning and appearance of Sukhbir Badal as a big progress in the investigation,alleged Sukhraj.

It was a plan scripted by the state government on the pattern of its predecessors to keep the police firing and sacrilege cases hanging in balance to extract political mileage, he alleged.

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