Implication in ‘false case’ extremely immoral: Sad’s Badal

Days after being named in a charge sheet in the 2015 Kotkapura police firing case, SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal on Monday said the AAP government’s move to implicate him in a “false” case was “extremely immoral and dangerous to democracy”. A Special Investigations Team of Punjab Police probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing case filed a charge sheet in a Faridkot court last month, naming the then-chief minister Badal, his deputy Sukhbir Singh Badal, the then-director general of police Sumedh Singh Saini, and others.
Though a court last week allowed his anticipatory bail plea, it dismissed the petition of his son and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal. In an open letter addressed to the people of Punjab, nonagenarian Badal said the previous Congress government played politics for five years over “some unfortunate incidents” during the Akali regime and claimed that the AAP dispensation was doing the same.
In the letter written in Punjabi, Badal said “some unfortunate incidents” took place during his tenure as chief minister, in an apparent reference to the 2015 sacrilege cases. It was a deep conspiracy to disrupt Punjab’s peace and communal harmony, he said.
During this episode, two law-and-order-related incidents occurred that were extremely unfortunate, the five-time chief minister said in an apparent reference to the police firings at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in Faridkot in 2015.
The move by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s government to implicate him in a “false” case was “extremely immoral, extremely dangerous to democracy, and a conspiracy to tarnish the constitutional office of the chief minister”, Badal said.
Badal also alleged that this case was a “big conspiracy to weaken” the Shiromani Akali Dal.
The incidents related to the theft of a ‘bir’ copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, handwritten sacrilegious posters, and pages of the holy book being torn at Bargari in Faridkot in 2015.
These cases had triggered protests, during which two people were killed at Behbal Kalan and a few injured at Kotkapura in police firing.