Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 2

A day after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) collected the handwriting sample of one of the accused in the sacrilege cases to compare it with those on the blasphemous posters, Sukhjinder Singh, the accused, today moved the court.

He approached the court of Judicial Magistrate Ist Class (JMIC) here with a protest application, saying the comparison of the handwritings by the SIT was in violation of the Punjab and Haryana High Court orders dated January 4.

The investigation in all three sacrilege cases was handed over to the CBI on November 2, 2015. “During its investigation, the CBI had taken my handwriting specimen and compared it with that on the posters. On August 27, 2018, the Central Forensics Science Laboratory in its report revealed that my writing did not match with that on the posters and this report was submitted in the CBI court on June 29, 2019,” Sukhjinder claimed in his application.

After the Vidhan Sabha resolved to withdraw the investigation of all sacrilege cases from the CBI and the latter submitted its final report in the CBI court, in this “fight” over the investigation of the sacrilege cases between the Punjab Police and the CBI, Sukhjinder had challenged the police investigation in the case, pending the CBI probe.

On January 4, the High Court had directed the CBI to handover all its evidence in the cases to the Punjab Police, who were asked to submit a supplementary report to the court in Faridkot. “The court would examine all the evidence and the report and pass an appropriate judgment,” Sukhjinder said in his application.

He said in view of the High Court orders, the SIT was not authorised to collect his handwriting specimen as it was already on record.

HC order ‘violated’

• Sukhjinder Singh, the accused, approached the court, saying the comparison of the handwritings by the SIT was in violation of the HC order on January 4
• “The CBI had compared my handwriting with that on the posters and the CFSL confirmed that the two didn’t match,” he said
• The HC on January 4 told the CBI to handover all evidence to the police, who were to just submit a supplementary report, he said

Cong ‘politicised’ cases

• SAD chief Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday said the incidents of sacrilege were deeply painful and the Congress had politicised those in the past four years
• He said the Congress could not be trusted to deliver justice as instead of fighting ‘Covid ki ladai’, it was fighting ‘kursi ki ladai’
• “After coming to power, the Congress took the case back from the CBI but failed to make any headway for four years,” he alleged