In an important development in Punjab’s Kotkapura firing case of 2015, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has summoned former deputy chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on August 30 in Chandigarh.
The move comes after the Faridkot district and sessions court said the proceedings in the Behbal Kalan case will not move further in the trial court until the SIT filed a charge sheet in the Kotkapura firing case.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had directed the state government to form an SIT to investigate into two FIRs filed on October 14, 2015 and August 7, 2018 in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan.
Badal was the deputy CM and state home minister when desecration of religious texts and subsequent firing took place in Faridkot in 2015.
This is the first time Sukhbir Singh Badal will be questioned in the Kotkapura firing case during the Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab government. He has been earlier questioned three times in the case.
Several senior SAD leaders, including Bikram Singh Majithia and Balwinder Singh Bhundar, NK Sharma and Daljit Singh Cheema reached Punjab Police Officers Institute in a show of support to Badal.
The high court had on April 9 quashed a report by an earlier Punjab Police SIT into the firing at people protesting in Kotkapura in 2015 over the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Faridkot district.
Police had also opened fire at a similar demonstration in Behbal Kalan, also in Faridkot, where two people were killed. A separate probe is underway in that case.
Two ADG-rank officers are investigating into the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents.
The SIT had submitted its status report in a sealed cover on August 4, after which the court in Faridkot had ordered to keep it confidential.
The police have already submitted four challans in Behbal Kalan case while they are yet to file a challan against the accused in the Kotkapura incident. Only one accused, Gurdeep Singh Pandar, is yet to be challaned in the Behbal Kalan case.
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