Sacrilege report indicts Parkash Singh Badal, sets stage for political showdown

A report over incidents of sacrilege and subsequent Punjab police firing in 2015 was tabled in the assembly on Monday in a move that will likely trigger another round of political slugfest among the Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party, which have attacked each other over the issue.

The report, submitted by the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) commission, indicts former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for the police action on anti-sacrilege protesters at Kotkapura. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal has rejected the report, describing it as “waste paper”.

Before the report was tabled in the assembly, SAD legislators, led by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, protested outside the assembly. Sukhbir and Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh traded barbs after the tabling of the report, which is likely to be discussed in the assembly on Tuesday.

The Punjab CM has said that those found guilty of trying to create religious disharmony in the state will be punished. He has already announced a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the firing incidents.

The commission was set up in April 2017 by the Congress government to investigate sacrilege of the holy Guru Granth Sahib and religious texts of other faiths when the SAD-BJP coalition government was in power in Punjab.

It concluded that the police had kept Parkash Singh Badal in the loop while taking action to break the sit-in protest by the Sikhs against the sacrilege.

In separate press conferences, Congress, SAD and AAP have trained guns on each other on the issue.

Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar held the SAD accountable for not arresting the accused in the incident of Guru Granth Sahib sacrilege.

Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann, meanwhile, said the Congress government had “intentionally leaked the commission report so that the Akalis could save themselves by intimidating the witnesses”.

First Published: Aug 27, 2018 23:35 IST