In Punjab’s deteriorating law and order situation, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal sees Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI) hand.
Sukhbir minced no words to sum up the recent series of law and order setbacks in the state, including previous week’s attack on a senior RSS leader, as handiwork of Pakistan’s spy agency.
“Their (ISI’s) plan is to target leaders, carry out sacrileges (of religious scriptures) to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in Punjab before the elections,” said Sukhbir, who is also the state’s home minister.
“We (State intelligence agencies) had the entire information that we sent to the Central Government, and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was also apprised of it last month,” he declared, adding that “police are doing their job in the best way possible,” he said.
Sukhbir said that Punjab police have busted many modules and arrested people from abroad also in this connection, but refused to elaborate, saying that it would hamper investigation.
He declared the cases of two anti-sacrilege protesters having been killed in police firing in Faridkot’s Behbal Kalan village last year solved. “The case of burning of Quran pages at Malerkotla earlier this year, in which a Delhi MlA of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is among the accused is also solved”, he said.
The two “high-profile cases” that remain unsolved are the attack on the RSS Punjab unit vice-president Brig (retd) Jagdish Gagneja in Jalandhar, and the killing of Namdhari matriarch Chand Kaur at the sect’s headquarters at Bhaini Sahib near ludhiana, he added.
Reiterating his accusation that Sikh radical groups from abroad were financing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), demanding that its funds be brought under scanner, Sukhbir dubbed AAP and the Congress “a frustrated lot”, adding that the two parties had tried but failed to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in Punjab.
“I appeal the Central Government to thoroughly investigate funding being received by AAP and its leaders as radicals from the State have aligned themselves with AAP,” he said.
“leaders of radical groups have been regularly meeting the AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Radical leaders like Mohkam Singh are trying their best to utilise elections 2017 as an opportunity to destablise peace and harmony attained by people of Punjab after great sacrifices,” said Sukhbir.
He said that it was very unfortunate that Kejriwal was in touch with such elements besides being on a very important constitutional post.