Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. (Express Photo by Jaipal Singh) With just 24 days to go for Punjab Assembly elections, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police probing cases of sacrilege Thursday presented a chargesheet against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and nine Dera followers in a Faridkot court. The FIR was presented in the June 2015 case where ‘bir’ of Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village.
Dera chief, sources said, has been challaned for conspiring in the case as SIT noted in the challan that the conspiracy was hatched in room number four of the administrative complex of Dera’s headquarters in Sirsa, and Dera chief knew about it being head of the sect.
The SIT is learnt to have pointed out that Dera chief and Dera vice president P R Nain did not co-operate when they were quizzed by it during the course of the investigation.
The SIT had questioned Dera chief, who is a convict in rape and murder cases, in Sunaria jail in Rohtak district of Haryana twice – on November 8 and December 14 last year.
On December 10 last year, the SIT had questioned Nain at sect’s headquarters in Sirsa. The SIT also intended to question Dera chairperson Vipassana but could not find her.
An official said that SIT had “more than sufficient evidence” as the hand writing of one of the accused Sunny had “matched” with the derogatory posters which were put after theft of Bir. The matching of hand writing, the official said, “established linkage of bir theft case and derogatory posters challenging the members of Sikh community and threatening them of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib that were found pasted in village Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on September 25, 2015”.
Torn pages of Guru Granth Sahib were found strewn in Bargari village on October 12.
Apart from Dera chief, others against whom the SIT filed the challan on Thursday are Sukhjinder Singh alias Sunny, Randeep Singh, Nishan Singh, Shakti Singh, Baljit Singh and Narinder Sharma for their alleged role in theft case.
SIT also named Pardeep Kaler, Harsh Dhuri and Sandeep Bareta, who are absconding and were declared proclaimed offenders in the case, in the chargesheet, apart from Mahinder Pal Bittu who was murdered in Nabha jail.
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