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SIT quizzes Parkash Badal for more than 2 hours in Kotkapura police firing case
Parkash Singh Badal was the chief minister of Punjab in 2015 when the incidents of desecration of religious texts and subsequent police firing on people protesting over the issue occured in Faridkot.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Tuesday questioned former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for nearly two-and-a-half hours in his official MLA flat in Chandigarh in connection to the probe related to 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident, people familiar with the developments told news agency PTI.
The Akali Dal supremo was summoned in Mohali earlier on Wednesday but he sought a change of date citing ill health. “Badal is keen to fulfil his legal and constitutional duties as a law-abiding citizen of the country,” Harcharan Bains, principal adviser to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal said pointing out that the former Punjab chief minister was still unwell.
High drama as Badal objects to questioning by non-SIT member
Vijay Singla, the state’s prosecutor who accompanied the SIT was also at the meeting, but his presence irked Badal who objected saying that he was not part of the probe team. SAD leaders Prem Singh Chadumajra, Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Dr Daljeet Cheema also said that Singla was sent to keep tabs on the SIT questioning. Singla asked the former CM regarding his role in the 2015 firing case but following Badal’s objection he did not ask any more questions, according to a report by HT.
Parkash Singh Badal was the chief minister of Punjab in 2015 when the incidents of desecration of religious texts and subsequent police firing on people protesting over the issue occured in Faridkot. The Punjab government in May 2021 set up a new SIT on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court. The SIT led by additional director of police LK Yadav quashed the report submitted by the first SIT led by inspector general Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh in April.
The new SIT is probing two FIRs which were registered on October 14 in 2015 and August 7 in 2018 with relation to the Kotkapura firing incident. The SIT has already questioned former DGP Sumedh Saini along with other police officers. The previous SIT also questioned the former chief minister who called the probe ‘politically motivated’ and said that the probe was initiated to defame him. A separate probe in the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing case is also underway. Police fired at demonstrators who were protesting the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib.
