Asserting that the probe by the Punjab Police into cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib would be taken to its logical conclusion, Punjab Government’s half a dozen Ministers on Sunday underlined that the Narendra Modi Government could not revive political fortunes of Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal and his family now by using the CBI to block this investigation.
Six Cabinet Ministers — Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Sidhu, Revenue Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Bharat Bhusan Ashu, and Social Security Minister Aruna Chowdhary — made it clear that in the perception of the people at large in general and the Sikhs in particular, “the guilty are the then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Singh Badal. However, this issue is not of just people’s perception but that of completing the investigative and judicial process”.
They charged that the Modi Government of using the central probing agency to block probe by the Punjab Police that had made a lot of progress in investigation and arrested the people who had carried out the heinous crime on instructions from Dera Sacha Sauda, would only reinforce the public perception against Badals.
The Ministers recalled that every move of the Badals at that time was designed to protect the guilty and crush people’s strong movement to get justice. “Not only that, the ruling Akali Dal countered that campaign by organizing Sadbhavana conferences.
The same modus operandi was adopted by the Badals when the Bargari Insaaf Morcha was launched in 2018 seeking early probe,” they said.
“Moreover, Parkash Singh Badal had misused the Akal Takht to secure pardon for Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim that had to be withdrawn following outburst of anger in the Sikh domain,” they added.