India

'Badal behind Faridkot firing, probe will prove it'

PTI

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday alleged that his predecessor Parkash Singh Badal was behind the “unwarranted” police firing in Faridkot during anti-sacrilege protests in 2015 in which two persons were killed.

He said an inquiry commission set up to probe the firing incident will prove his charge.

“How can a superintendent of police order firingIJ He was clearly instructed to do so,” Singh said at a function organised by SAD (Delhi).

He said the Akali rule witnessed 183 such incidents, of which 121 remained unsolved. 13 sacrilege incidents “have been reported since the Congress government took over, of which 12 have been solved”.

Two persons were killed allegedly in police firing when violent protests had erupted in Faridkot district over the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in October 2015. The Justice Zora Singh Commission of Inquiry had held the police firing at Behbal Kalan as “absolutely unwarranted”.

The Punjab CM alleged that the Akalis used “religion to further their political objectives” and their government ruined the state’s economy and created communal problems.

He claimed that the previous SAD-BJP Government registered more than “one lakh fake cases” against innocent people. As many as 28 cases had been registered against a boy in Ajnala.

Singh said the false cases registered during the Badal rule were also a matter of concern and a commission set up by his Government to probe these would identify the culprits and bring them to book.