Where is external hand in unprovoked police firing: Capt

Accusing Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal of mishandling the situation arising out of a series of incidents of desecration of ‘birs’ of Guru Granth Sahib, Amritsar MP and Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh has claimed, in a press note, that the state government failed to take action when needed.

Referring to Badal’s statement that external forces were responsible for the recent spate of protests, Amarinder said, “What is the Badal government doing and why is it playing into their (the external forces’) hands.”

He added, “First, the government was paralysed and then it overreacted. The government did not take any action for more than four months after the Guru Granth Sahib went missing from a gurdwara in Faridkot. Then last week, the police resorted to unprovoked indiscriminate firing on peaceful protesters killing two people and injuring more than 40. Where is the external hand in indiscriminate firing on peaceful protestors by the state police?”

He demanded that the cops guilty of firing without provocation, including former Moga SSP Charanjit Sharma, must be dismissed from service and booked for murder.

Questioning the credibility of the judicial inquiry ordered into the incident by the CM, he claimed that the man conducting the probe justice (retired) Zora Singh was a close relative of the Badal family.

“We need an inquiry by a sitting high court or a supreme court judge into all recent incidents of sacrilege,” he added.

He also alleged that the current happenings had acted as catalysts for the state’s residents to give full vent to their anger as they had been grappling with other major government failures like inability to curb drug peddling, rising unemployment and the monopoly of the Badal family over all businesses in the state.

First Published: Oct 20, 2015 21:08 IST