Akalis to challenge CBI closure report in Bargari sacrilege cases

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh July 16

The SAD today outrightly rejected the closure report by the CBI on the investigations into the events of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari.

A core committee of the party decided this evening that it “will challenge the closure report and take all legal, constitutional and political steps to get the probe by the apex investigating agency reopened and taken to its logical conclusion.

Giving details of the meeting, party spokesperson Harcharan Singh Bains said the meeting, which was chaired by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, also decided that a delegation, comprising SAD leaders, would call on Union Home Minister Amit Shah. It would urge him to intervene in the matter for the withdrawal of the closure report and for ensuring that all immediate and urgent steps to get the probe completed are taken as a priority so that the culprits of this despicable crime were booked and severely punished.

Simultaneously, a team of legal experts would pursue the matter in a court of law to make certain that the deep conspiracy behind the painful chain of events pertaining to the tragic and grievous acts of sacrilege was fully exposed and the hit men and their bosses and conspirators were given punishment that should serve as exemplary deterrents for future culprits, said Bains in a statement after the core committee meeting.

“There is no justification in filing the closure report by the CBI when the probe in none of the issues referred to it for investigation by the SAD-BJP government at the persistent behest of several Sikh religious bodies has been completed by the apex body. The Sikh organisations had been demanding a probe by the central agency as these bodies expressed a lack of faith in the probe being conducted by the Special Investigation Team of the Punjab Police headed by the then IG IPS Sahota and comprising DIG RS Khatra and others.

Later talking to mediapersons at the party office, Sukhbir Singh Badal said he had been taken aback by the CBI’s closure report.