Having failed to crack the case of murder of Chand Kaur, wife of former Namdhari sect head late Satguru Jagjit Singh, the Punjab government has requested for transfer of investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) through a notification on September 11.
Also, the state has sent the 2011 murder case of another Namdhari leader, Avtar Singh Tari, from Sahnewal area in Ludhiana, and the Maksudan (Jalandhar) tiffin bomb case, to the CBI, stating that all these cases are interlinked.
Chand Kaur, 88, was shot dead on April 4 by two unidentified bike-borne men at the Bhaini Sahib gurdwara complex, headquarters of the sect, at Bhaini Sahib near Ludhiana.
Sources said the probe carried out by a special investigation team (SIT) in the Chand Kaur murder pointed towards some influential people of the same sect. The government took the plea that the assailants belonged to some other state and fled back to their respective areas after committing the crime. In such conditions, when accused are from other states, the police could not investigate the cases effectively, it has said.
The government also stated that the same weapons were used in the murder of Chand Kaur and of Tari.
{{/usCountry}}The government also stated that the same weapons were used in the murder of Chand Kaur and of Tari.
{{/usCountry}}Additional chief secretary (home) Jagpal Singh Sandhu confirmed that the cases have been sent for the CBI to take up.
The CBI has already taken up the case of an attack on Brigadier (Retd) Jagdish Gagneja, Punjab vice-president of the Rashtriya SwayamSewak Sangh (RSS).
Earlier, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had on April 25, while addressing a function on the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, claimed that the state police SIT had got a breakthrough and that the killers of Chand Kaur would be behind bars soon.