The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission of Inquiry — set up to probe all sacrilege incidents in Punjab — is expected to submit its first report this week. With this, startling revelations are expected to come to the fore.
Justice Ranjit Singh, the retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, has sought time from the Chief Minister to submit the report.
Set up on April 14 after the Congress party came to power, the one-man Commission has completed its probe into the first incident of sacrilege reported from Bargari village in Faridkot district on October 12, 2015.
As many as 110 pages of Guru Granth Sahib, stolen from the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in June that year, were found torn off outside a gurudwara.
Following this, about 122 incidents of sacrilege were reported in the State from 2015, with the maximum reported from Amritsar, ludhiana and Jalandhar, that are continuing till date, coupled with widespread protests across the state.
In one of the major protests, two Sikh protesters were killed in police firing on October 14, 2015, at Behbal Kalan village near Faridkot.
The first report would cover the incidents of desecration of Sikhs’ holy scripture — Guru Granth Sahib — in Bargadi, and Behbal Kalan to begin with, a government official told The Pioneer.It has been learnt that the Commission has gone deep into the incidents, gathering detailed information — which the previous panel, constituted by the erstwhile SAD-BJP combine, and the police, probing the cases has “failed to take note”.
The Commission has recorded the evidences of witnesses at Bargari and Behbal Kalan villages in gurdwaras.
Besides, the Commission is also said to have established crucial links, covering the political, religious, and administrative aspects. Besides, the Commission is also said to have made certain recommendations to the state police chief in its report.
During the course of investigations, Justice Ranjit Singh has himself travelled to the places where the sacrilege incidents have been reported in the past, and meeting the people concerned, gathering evidences on his own.The Commission is probing the sacrilege incidents from all angles including personal enmity, terrorist activity or conspiracy to disturb peace in the border state of Punjab.
Rubbishing the Justice Zora Singh Commission report, Chief Minister had constituted Justice Ranjit Singh panl to look into sacrilege cases since 2015 besides suggesting measures to check the same.The Commission, in one of its order, had lashed out at the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee saying it didn’t take any steps to check the incidents of sacrilege in the State.