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SIT expedites sacrilege incidents’ probe days after HC rebuff in police firing probe
Sources said the SIT led by IGP (border range) Surinder Pal Singh Parmar has been asked to speed up the investigation in the 2015 sacrilege cases and file a supplementary charge sheet
After Punjab and Haryana high court quashed the investigation reports of the special investigation team (SIT) led by inspector general of police (IGP) Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh in Kotkapura firing case, the SIT probing the 2015 sacrilege incidents has expedited the process to file a supplementary charge sheet.
Sources said the SIT led by IGP (border range) Surinder Pal Singh Parmar has been asked to speed up the investigation in the 2015 sacrilege cases and file a supplementary charge sheet.
Both 2015 sacrilege and police firing cases are interlinked as two youths had died in the Behbal Kalan firing on October 14, 2015, while protesting against the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari on October 12. The police also opened fire the same day on protesters at Kotkapura, leaving many injured.
An officer privy to the development said an undertaking has been submitted in the court that the new SIT chairman has started the investigation after taking the charge as per the high court order. “Three meetings have been already held since Parmar took the charge as SIT chairman. The SIT has already completed all the investigation at the ground level and now only the record recovered from the CBI needs to be added. The record handed over by the CBI is extensive and the SIT is going through the documents to make a supplementary charge sheet. After the recent order of the high court in Kotkapura firing, the probe has been expedited in these cases,” the officer added.
Parmar said investigation on and they are going through the CBI probe documents. “A supplementary charge sheet will be filed in the court after completing investigation. I cannot share more information,” he added.
In January this year, the Punjab and Haryana high court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to hand over the diaries and papers relating to the investigation into the three sacrilege incidents of 2015 to the Punjab Police and asked the state government to replace the then SIT head IG Ranbir Singh Khatra.
However, in the order, the high court observed that though it is not discarding the probe conducted by the Khatra-led SIT, the team should be headed by a different officer so as to ensure that “no element of prejudice”, whatsoever, remains in the mind of the petitioner. While in the Kotkapura firing case, the high court has quashed all the investigation report of SIT and asked the state to make a fresh SIT excluding IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh.
In February, IG Parmar replaced Khatra as the new chairman of the SIT. On March 12, the SIT had informed the court of judicial magistrate Faridkot that IGP Parmar has taken charge as chairman of the SIT. However, Khatra remained a member of the SIT till his retirement on March 31 this year.
Khatra was appointed the chairman of the SIT constituted by the state government on April 22, 2020, to probe the cases related to three FIRs registered in connection with sacrilege incidents. The first case pertains to the theft of the ‘bir’ (a copy of Guru Granth Sahib) from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village near Kotkapura in Faridkot district on June 1, 2015. The second was the putting up of a poster at Bargari village on September 25, 2015; and the third was the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib as torn pages of the ‘bir’ were found in Bargari on October 12, 2015.
In July last year, the SIT had named jailed Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and dera’s three national committee members — Sandeep Bretta, Pardeep Kler and Harsh Dhuri — as accused and filed a charge sheet against seven dera followers in a case relating to the theft of a ‘bir’.
