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Kotkapura firing: Badal expresses inability to join probe on health grounds
Offers to meet SIT members at his current residence at MLA flats in Chandigarh as soon as his health gets better
Former Punjab chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal on Monday wrote to the special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 Kotkapura firing case expressing his inability to meet the panel on June 16 on health grounds and sought rescheduling of the date for appearance.
Badal said he has been advised complete bed rest for 10 days by doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bathinda. The 93-year-old Akali patriarch didn’t specify his ailment.
Badal offered to join investigations at his current residence at MLA flats in Chandigarh as soon as his health gets better. An official of the three-member SIT hinted that the panel members may approach Badal at his place of convenience. “We will take a decision on Tuesday,” he said.
The SIT had summoned Badal, asking him to appear before it with records on Wednesday at a rest house in Mohali.
Since its constitution last month after the Punjab and Haryana high court quashed the report of a previous SIT, the new probe panel led by additional director general of police (ADGP) LK Yadav, has held three rounds of questioning of a couple of police officials and politicians in two politically-sensitive cases of police firing on crowds protesting over the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 when Badal was at the helm of the state.
In his latest communication to the SIT, Badal underlined his intent and commitment to “fully cooperate with the law”, saying he had “complete faith in the judiciary”.
Stating that he hoped that the new SIT, unlike the previous one, would conduct a fair investigation, Badal added that “the entire process of investigation already stands compromised because of political interference and vendetta”.
The former CM said the very need for the present SIT had arisen out of the brazen politicisation of the case by the previous SIT, alleging that one of its members had tried to politicise the issue and subvert the entire investigation process.
