Panel Report on Punjab Killings Points at Parkash Singh Badal

Chandigarh: A report submitted by the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) commission into sacrilege incidents and subsequent police firing in 2015 in Punjab was tabled in the Assembly on Monday, with its supplementary report pointing a finger at then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for police action against anti-sacrilege protesters. The five-page supplementary report, submitted on August 16, says: “Earlier, the commission had, in its report, observed that the facts may indicate the involvement of the CMO (Chief Minister’s Office), but it is now clear that the (then) Chief Minister and the CMO were apparently kept in the loop about the action proposed by the police and the action finally taken at Kotkapura.”

Ahead of the report’s tabling, Shiromani Akali Dal legislators led by party President Sukhbir Singh Badal protested outside the Assembly here and flashed the report that had been leaked before it was submitted to the state government. A debate on the report is likely to be held in the Assembly on Tuesday. The one-man panel had probed the sacrilege incidents reported from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala, Bargari, Gurusar and Mallke villages and police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura on Sikh protesters in 2015.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has repeatedly assured that those found guilty of trying to create religious disharmony in the state through such actions would be punished. He has already announced a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the firing incidents. It concluded that the police had kept Badal in the loop while taking action to break the sit-in protest by the Sikhs against the sacrilege. The commission indicted Badal on the basis of a written statement submitted by then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini, who was removed from the post after the firing incident. (IANS)