Drug smuggling case: Capt Amarinder unleashing his political vendetta, says Sukhpal Singh Khaira

AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira at his residdence in Chandigarh Wednesday. (Express Photo by Jaipal Singh)

Punjab Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Singh Khaira Wednesday termed his summoning by a Fazilka court in a drug smuggling case as "wrongful and erroneous" and said that it has been done at the behest of Captain Amarinder Singh through his politically motivated prosecution machinery. Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh, Khaira, who is an MLA of AAP from Bholath, said that the CM had unleashed political vendetta against him, on the lines of his friendly predecessors - the Badals. He said the false allegations of the Captain government are yet another attempt to intimidate him and gag his voice against corruption and other misdeeds.

"The conspiracy to nail me in an utterly false drugs case amounted to shooting the messenger and silencing the voice of whistleblowers," he said. Stating that he was being framed to settle scores, the LoP said how an additional public prosecutor of Fazilka could move a vague application seeking his summoning when he was neither named in the FIR, in the chargesheet nor in any statement of independent witnesses.

Khaira said that when the drug scandal was revealed in March 2015, the Badal-government had set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the then IG of Bathinda zone, DIG Ferozpur Range and SSP Fazilka as its members. "The SIT could not find anything incriminating against me. As a result, my name never hadn’t figured in the FIR, the chargesheet or the trial. It is also astonishing how a court could summon me when trial in the said drug case had concluded," he said.

Khaira said that it was surprising that he is being summoned on the basis of call records which have been wrongly presented by the additional public prosecutor to the Fazilka court, accusing him of speaking to an accused 78 times whereas after the perusal of call records, the number of calls were found to be negligible. "I challenge the Congress government to order an investigation by an independent agency in this case. I should be shot, I should be hanged if I am found guilty," he said. He added that he would soon move the Punjab and Haryana High Court to challenge the summons issued to him.

Meanwhile, Khaira said that he would not step down from the post of Leader of Opposition in the wake of the summons issued to him. Khaira said both Captain Amarinder Singh and Sukhpal Singh Khaira never resigned from their positions of power despite being summoned and chargesheeted in corruption cases. "In case, both Captain and Sukhbir Singh Badal offer to resign from their positions to uphold ethics and morality in politics, I will follow suit in five minutes and resign from the position of LoP," he said.