Chandigarh, July 20 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday said that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wanted to divert attention from his sacrilegious conduct against the Guru Sahiban by summoning him for questioning in an 11-year-old police firing case in Behbal Kalan, which was still under investigation after all these years.

The SAD chief, who answered all the questions asked by the Special Investigating Team (SIT) during a two-hour questioning session here, told the media, “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 summons 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 an SIT not to bring the accused to justice but to politicise the issue.”

Braving rains, hundreds of party supporters gathered near the Punjab Police Officers Institute (PPOI) to express solidarity with Badal.

The SAD chief, while speaking to supporters, thanked them for coming out in numbers 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 as a drama, Badal said, “The truth is that this is a diversionary tactic. The Chief Minister is afraid of 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. Such acts cannot mitigate the anger and anguish of the people against the Chief Minister. 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, 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 in the past 10 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 chief said 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”.

–IANS

vg/uk