Sukhbir questioned for Kotkapura police firing

After interrogating Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing case in Punjab, on Saturday questioned his son and party SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal for four hours. Badal was the Chief Minister of Punjab when the police had opened fire on protesters on October 14, 2015.

Chandigarh:After interrogating Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing case in Punjab, on Saturday questioned his son and party SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal for four hours here. Sukhbir was the Deputy Chief Minister and also the Home Minister when the incidents of the desecration of a religious text and the subsequent police firing took place in Faridkot in 2015. The SIT team, led by ADGP L.K. Yadav quizzed the former Deputy Chief Minister.

Earlier this week, the SIT questioned former five-time Chief Minister Badal at his residence here for three hours. Badal was the Chief Minister of Punjab when the police had opened fire on protesters on October 14, 2015, killing two and injuring others after the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Bargari village in Faridkot district took place. The SIT is to ascertain as to who gave the orders to open fire, whether the cops fired in self-defence and if the standard operating procedure was followed.

After the High Court order on April 9, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has constituted a new SIT. Responding to the questioning of the Sukhbir, Harcharan Bains, Principal Advisor to the party president, said the Kotkapura firing "must be the only incident in the world where the SIT wants to know who ordered firing after the relevant competent authority, the SDM, has already declared that he ordered it". "It's like SIT telling the SDM please don't say you ordered it. We want to blame it on someone else," he added.

In an interesting development in the case, a former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap, who was handling the probe into police firing after the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib, this week joined Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the presence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after opting voluntary retirement from his service. After joining the politics, Vijay Pratap blamed the accused of the sacrilege case for dictating the state government.

(IANS)