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HC seeks fresh status report from police in Maur blast case
The petitioner alleged that ever since the names of some Dera Sacha Sauda followers have cropped up in the Maur blast case, the probe has slowed down
Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday sought a fresh status report from Punjab Police in Maur Mandi blast case, reported a few days before the 2017 assembly polls in the state.
The report was sought by high court bench of chief justice RS Jha and justice Arun Palli on revival of a plea from one Gurjeet Singh Patran, a Patiala resident, said his lawyer, MS Joshi. The detailed order is awaited.
The twin blasts occurred on January 31, ahead of the February 4 assembly elections in Punjab in 2017 in which seven persons were killed and 25 were injured. The SIT filed a challan before a trial court on January 29, 2020, but none of the accused persons have been arrested.
Initially, the plea was filed in May 2018, seeking a probe by an independent agency. It was disposed of by the high court in September 2018, with the court expressing its satisfaction with the investigation.
In December 2018, Patran again approached the high court, demanding its revival alleging that main accused has still not been arrested. This plea too was disposed of, giving police two weeks to arrest the accused. Patran then filed a contempt plea, which paved the way for the revival of 2018 plea. The HC took up the revival of plea for the first time on Tuesday.
Patran has alleged that ever since the names of some Dera Sacha Sauda followers have cropped up in the case, the probe has slowed down. He also claimed that Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim has neither been questioned nor arrested.
“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,” the plea claims, demanding that probe be handed over to a central agency.
