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Maur Mandi blasts: HC seeks status report from Punjab Police
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday sought a status report of the probe in the 2017 Maur Mandi blasts case.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday sought a status report of the probe in the 2017 Maur Mandi blasts case.
The HC acted on a plea by one Gurjeet Singh Patran, who had alleged contempt of court by the Punjab Police and has named Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta and ADGP (lawn and order) Ishwar Singh, who is head of the SIT in the case, besides other SIT members.
The twin blasts occurred on January 31 ahead of the February 4 Punjab assembly elections in 2017. Seven persons were killed and 25 had sustained injuries in the blasts. The SIT had filed its report before a trial court on January 29, 2020.
However, on September 17, dissatisfied over the probe, the high court had given two-weeks time for arrest of the main accused.
The September 17 order was passed on plea of Patran, who is demanding that the probe be handed over to the National Investigating Agency or the Central Bureau of Investigation.
He alleges that ever since the names of some Dera Sacha Sauda followers have cropped up in the case, the probe has slowed down.
In the fresh plea, he said that the high court orders of September 25, 2018, January 30, 2020 and September 17, 2020 have been violated by the police.
The SIT has not made any tangible progress and has failed to arrest anyone till date.
Moreover, Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has neither been questioned nor arrested, he said, demanding that the officials concerned be summoned and punished for wilful contempt of court.
The vehicle used in the blasts was assembled in a workshop of Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa and two of the identified accused are said to be close associates of Ram Rahim, who is undergoing a jail term in two rape cases in Haryana.
“Punjab government is responsible for deterioration of evidence due to delay in investigation in the case and by not referring the matter to NIA or CBI in time. It has failed to investigate the case, discover the conspiracy behind the blasts, and arrest even a single accused,” he said, adding that the ruling party is behind the inefficiency of Punjab Police.
The plea was filed in May 2018 and was disposed of by the HC in September 2018 with the court expressing its satisfaction with the probe.
But in December 2018, Patran had approached the HC again, stating that the main accused has still not been arrested. This plea too was disposed of on September 17, with the court asking the SIT to arrest he main accused within two weeks. But the SIT has failed to make any arrests so far.
