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SIT files chargesheet against 6 Dera Sacha Sauda followers in Bargari sacrilege case
Also files application for declaring 3 absconding dera national committee members as proclaimed offenders
The special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 sacrilege incidents in Punjab on Friday filed a chargesheet in a Faridkot court against six Dera Sacha Sauda followers in the Bargari desecration case.
The 500-page chargesheet was filed in the court of judicial magistrate Tarjani against Sukhjinder Singh, alias Sunny, Nishan Singh, Ranjit Singh, alias Bhola, and Pardeep Kumar, all residents of Kotkapura; Shakti Singh of Daggu Romana village and Baljit Singh of Sikhanwala village in Faridkot district.
The challan was filed under sections 295 (destroying, damaging or defiling any place of worship, or any object held sacred), 295-A (malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information), 120-B (being party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) and 153-A (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence or language etc) of Indian Penal Code.
On May 16 this year, the SIT led by inspector general of police (border range) Surinder Pal Singh Parmar had arrested the six sect followers in connection with the Bargari sacrilege episode.
On October 12, 2015, torn pages of a bir (copy of Guru Granth Sahib), which was stolen from the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala gurdwara, were found scattered near a shrine at Bargari. Later, Sukhjinder, Shakti, Ranjit and Baljeet were named as accused in another sacrilege incident wherein two derogatory posters were pasted near the Bargari gurdwara on the intervening night of September 24 and 25 in 2015.
The SIT probe has found that the accused had scattered the torn pages of ‘bir’ stolen from the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala Gurdwara on October 12, 2015 at Bargari.
The SIT has also named three absconding members of the Sirsa-based dera’s national committee as conspirators in both cases. They are Sandeep Bareta, Pardeep Kaler and Harsh Dhuri, all Haryana residents. The probe team has also filed an application along with the chargesheet for initiating proceedings to declare the three as proclaimed offenders (POs).
In November 2015, the Akali-BJP government had handed over the probe into the three sacrilege incidents to the CBI. But the Punjab Police’s SIT probing other desecration cases claimed to have traced all the three incidents in 2018. The CBI did not agree with the SIT probe findings and filed a closure report in the three cases in July 2019.
The Congress government, led by Captain Amarinder Singh, took back the cases from the CBI and handed over the probe to the SIT led by IG (now retired) Ranbir Singh Khatra. In July last year, the SIT named jailed Sirsa-based dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, three national committee members as accused and filed a chargesheet against seven sect followers in the case of theft of ‘bir’ from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on June 1, 2015. However, the SIT has not named the dera chief in Bargari sacrilege case so far.
In January this year, the Punjab and Haryana high court had directed the CBI to hand over the diaries and papers relating to the probe into the three sacrilege incidents to the Punjab Police and asked the state government to replace the then SIT head IG Khatra. In February, IG Parmar replaced Khatra as the new SIT head.
