Behbal Kalan firing: Govt seeks more time, says need clarification on HC order
The families of victims of the Behbal Kalan firing and Sikh groups gave 14-day time to the team to come up with something significant and announced a gathering on July 24
: As a three-month deadline set by the state government to bring the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing case to a logical conclusion lapsed, a team of lawyers on Sunday sought more time to get a clarification on an order passed by the Punjab and Haryana high court in the matter.
A team of lawyers led by Santokhwinder Singh, which is constituted by the state government to give monthly updates of status of the case to the victims’ kin, reached Faridkot on Sunday and briefed them.
The families of victims and Sikh groups gave 14-day time to the team to come up with something significant and announced a gathering on July 24.
“In last three months, they have managed to get writ petitions disposed off but the case is still at the same stage in the trial court. Now they have sought more time. On July 24, we will announce a further course of agitation if the government failed to come up with something significant,” Sukhraj Singh, son of one of the victims Krishan, whose sit-in entered the 206th day on Sunday, said.
Two Sikh protesters — Gurjeet Singh of Sarawan village and Krishan Bhagwan Singh of Niamiwala village in Faridkot district — were killed on October 14, 2015, when they were protesting against a sacrilege incident.
Earlier this week, HC disposed of five pleas filed by former Punjab director general of police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini and others while asking the Punjab Police special investigation teams (SITs) to expedite the probe into the 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing cases.
The state has now moved an application in the HC seeking clarification over a direction to hold a simultaneous hearing of both firing cases and accesses to evidence collected by the Kotkapura probe team.
“The prosecution, in turn, shall submit a report of further investigation to the trial court at the earliest as it appears that in Kotkapura case, report has been prepared. The trial court shall proceed to take all these (2015 Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing) cases simultaneously on the same day and decide the same in accordance with the law,” reads the HC order on which the state has sought clarification.
Punjab advocate general Anmol Rattan Sidhu said that “SIT needed clarification on one point of the order in which court has asked both SITs to move simultaneously, so we have moved an application. We are providing all the legal help to the probe team and got all the pending writ petitions disposed off. The matter is likely to be taken up next week.”
A high court bench had observed that Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan criminal cases are “intrinsically mixed up” and the SIT headed by IGP Naunihal Singh (probing Behbal Kalan criminal cases) is feeling “handicapped” in the absence of material collected by the SIT of Kotkapura. The court “desired” that the SIT in the Kotkapura criminal cases conduct the investigation “expeditiously” so that the Naunihal Singh-led SIT also can proceed with the probe. Kotkapura cases are being probed by the SIT led by IPS officer LK Yadav.
