Sikh organisations protested outside the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in New Delhi on Friday and submitted a memorandum against the transfer of inspector general of police, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, as member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing police firing on anti-sacrilege protesters at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in 2015.
The workers of Sikh bodies were led by acting parallel jathedar (high priest) of the Akal Takht, Dhian Singh Mand, and accompanied by United Akali Dal leaders Mohkam Singh and Gurdip Singh. A protest march was taken from Gurdwara Rakabganj Sahib to the EC headquarters. Earlier this week, Mand had sought the reinstatement of the IG as a SIT member, threatening to start a protest against the decision.
The memorandum says, “We have been following all the proceedings of the SIT and are aware of painstaking work that the IG has been pursuing to ensure that the guilty are brought to book. As SAD leaders started feeling the heat of investigation, they started making wrong noises against the IG. Realising that they might be indicted for their complicity for ordering police firing, SAD leaders moved the EC to remove the officer from the SIT to save their own skin,” reads the memorandum.
The letter adds, “The EC decision is not only a setback to the probe, but a jolt to justice to victim families. The EC should have simply asked the officer to refrain from talking to the media or in public, but to remove him from the SIT is nothing but obstruction of justice and rubbing salt into the wounds of victims’ families and Sikhs.”
{{/usCountry}}The letter adds, “The EC decision is not only a setback to the probe, but a jolt to justice to victim families. The EC should have simply asked the officer to refrain from talking to the media or in public, but to remove him from the SIT is nothing but obstruction of justice and rubbing salt into the wounds of victims’ families and Sikhs.”
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