With the dust of controversy rising over the Governor’s pardon to four “killer” cops in 1993 fake encounter case, SAD president Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday hold Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh “directly and personally responsible” for the same while accusing him going “out of the way” to secure pardon for the murder convicts.
At the same time, Sukhbir announced that the party would meet the Governor VP Singh Badnore pressing him to recall the pardon. “And if the Government do not reverse its decision, we will approach the High Court against the pardon,” said Sukhbir.
He also demanded a judicial probe by a sitting judge of the High Court into the entire sequence of events to unearth the conspiracy behind it.
Sukhbir, setting the record straight in the wake of Congress attempts to “mislead” the people, made it clear that neither he as the Home Minister or the Jails Minister or the Chief Minister processed the file at any step during the erstwhile SAD-BJP government.
“Congress government is not only at fault for recommending and implementing the pardon decision, but also not recording the serious nature of the crime committed by the killer cops and the injustice which would be inflicted on the victim family in case the killers came out of jail scot free after undergoing barely two years of their life sentence,” said Sukhbir while adding that this was the “clear case of travesty of justice and we demand the pardon decision be reviewed immediately”.
“We owe this to the Sikh masses, especially to the families of thousands of innocent Sikh youth killed in fake police encounters in the state during Congress governments or Governor’s regime,” he said.
Armed with all facts and “evidences”, Sukhbir asked the Chief Minister to explain to the people of Punjab in general and the Sikh masses in particular “why you went so much out of the way to expeditiously secure pardon for the murder convicts”.
“Punjab government files clearly proved how Capt Amarinder took an extraordinary personal interest in securing pardon for the killer cops, quite out of character with his normal laid-back approach on every issue of public interest,” said Sukhbir while sharing copies of government files with the media.