Moga shootout: Badal ready to form SIT as Akali leader’s name comes up

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday ruled out any CBI probe into the Moga shootout case, in which two persons were killed by the Chandigarh police on Wednesday night. However, he added that the government was ready to form a special investigation team (SIT) headed by an inspector general (IG)-rank officer, “which will hold a thorough probe into the entire incident and submit a report to me”. The kin of the deceased have been demanding a CBI probe. A magisterial inquiry is already being conducted.

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday ruled out any CBI probe into the Moga shootout case, in which two persons were killed by the Chandigarh police on Wednesday night. However, he added that the government was ready to form a special investigation team (SIT) headed by an inspector general (IG)-rank officer, “which will hold a thorough probe into the entire incident and submit a report to me”. The kin of the deceased have been demanding a CBI probe. A magisterial inquiry is already being conducted.

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Meanwhile, in an added twist to the matter, two alleged gangsters who got injured in the encounter have alleged that ruling Shiromani Akali Dal’s leader (SAD) Gursewak Singh Gholia, chairman of the Baghapurana block samiti, was present at the encounter site along with the cops from Chandigarh.

Gholia is a cousin of Chandigarh crime branch inspector Ranjodh Singh who had led the team to Moga for nabbing some of these two men in an assault case registered in Chandigarh. This team got into the encounter on Moga’s outskirts and killed Sukhdev Singh and his aide Indepreet Singh ‘Gora’.

Gholia has denied any involvement, while inspector Ranjodh has also dismissed the allegation that Gholia was at the site.