Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today said chief minister Bhagwant Mann wanted to divert attention from his sacrilegious conduct against the Guru Sahiban and Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawala by summoning him for questioning in a eleven year old firing case in Behbal Kalan which was still under investigation after all these years.
The SAD president, who answered all the questions asked by the SIT during a two hour questioning session, said “the SIT is asking the same questions again and again. This is the fourth time I have been called. All questions and my answers have already been recorded on camera and documented in the previous SIT registers.
The questions posed today were clearly politically motivated and seem to have been framed by the Delhi AAP team to extract political mileage from an unfortunate incident. Each and every time I have responded promptly to the summoning as I want those guilty in the case to be brought to book.
But this is not the intention of the Aam Aadmi Party government which has formed a SIT not to bring the accused to justice but to politicize the issue”. Thousands of SAD supporters congregated near the Punjab Police Officers Institute (PPOI) to express solidarity with Mr Sukhbir Badal.
Amidst slogans of ‘takht badal do taj badal do, beimaana da raj badal do’, the SAD cadre made it clear that they would take this vendetta exercise head on. Mr Badal while speaking to the cadre thanked them for coming out in thousands amidst heavy rain to give a clear cut warning to the AAP government that they would not tolerate the politics of lies”.
Terming the summons served on him today as a drama, Mr Badal said “the truth is that this is a diversionary tactic. The chief minister is afraid of the SAD. That is why I have been summoned to shift the focus away from the sacrilegious acts of the CM including sprinkling liquor on the portraits of the Guru Sahiban and trying to urinate on the picture of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
Such acts cannot mitigate the anger and anguish of the people against the chief minister. The SAD will continue to expose his misdeeds and will not be intimidated by such tactics. We will hold Bhagwant Mann responsible for all his sins. He will be made to appear at this same place in front of the same police officers and will be held to account”.
Making it clear that Punjabis were fed up with AAP, Mr Badal said “this party has done nothing but loot the State and its resources. Punjabis are waiting for the forthcoming assembly elections to teach them a befitting lesson”. He also took on the chief minister for doing nothing to contain sacrilege incidents in the State.
He said 597 cases of sacrilege had been committed in the State during the last ten years. “The chief minister has not even taken the trouble to get them probed properly leading to large scale acquittals and cancellation of cases. Bhagwant Mann himself committed the heinous religious crime of sending the police force into a shrine in Sultanpur Lodhi leading to disruption of the Akhand Path”.
The SAD president said Bhagwant Mann had not stopped at this. Now he is confronting the most venerable institution of the Sikhs – the Sri Akal Takht Sahib. I want to make it very clear to him. Whoever confronts Sri Akal Takht Sahib bites the dust. His fate will be the same”.
Senior Akali leaders including Mr Balwinder Singh Bhundar, Bikram Singh Majithia, Janmeja Singh Sekhon, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Sikandar Singh Maluka, Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, Hira Singh Gabria, Paramjit Singh Sarna, N K Sharma and Arshdeep Kler accompanied the SAD president.