Skip to main content

Probe into cases of sacrilege must be expedited as denial of justice has serious ramifications

 

Quashing of Kotkapura probe by High Court is not end of the road, expedite Bargari

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

Chandigarh: Impression has gone around that the verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashing SIT probing the Kotkapura firing case related to sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib has has put to an end the lingering hope of the Sikh devotees of getting justice from the System. It is not. The very institution that is the deliverer of justice has just put a spoke in the wheel and that to mainly because of the incompetence of the government in handling this sensitive case. It is just one case and that too is off-shoot of the basic case that is theft of Bir of Guru Granth Sahib from a gurdwara in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in the Malwa hinterland in June 1, 2015 whose pages were subsequently found scattered on the streets of the adjoining Bargari village on the morning of October 12, more than four months later.

In power at that time in Punjab was the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government with Parkash Singh Badal as the Chief Minister with his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as the Deputy Chief Minister incharge of Home department handling the police.

The high court verdict has triggered tremors at various levels as it has given clean chit to Badals.

The devotees were sitting on dharna on a trijunction in Kotkapura a few km away from Bargari beginning October 12 when the police action started early morning on October 14. This was followed three hours later a Behbal Kalan next to Bargari in which two people were killed.

The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission appointed by the Capt Amarinder Singh government has provided the details of these incidents beginning with Burj village on the basis of which the SIT was constituted to probe firing at Behbal and Kotkapura.

However, the SIT probing the Burj and Bargari incidents continue to be functional and these are the basic cases. The Behbal and Kotkapura firing are the off-shoot of Burj and Bargari.

What is the progress in Burj and Bargari cases? Only the state government can tell. Some people associated with Dera Sacha Sauda were arrested and that is the only progress so far.

 No effort has been made again to question Dera chief Gurmit Ram Rahim who is in Rohtak Jail after having been convicted in a rape case. He is facing several other cases too.

Dera Sacha Sauda is perceived by political parties as influential vote bank in Punjab and Haryana.

The Bargari sacrilege is not  a case in isolation and is part of a continuing religio-political narrative and is not a matter to be investigated by the police.

Bargari issue is back on the centre-stage in Punjab’s political domain. While the Akali dal is celebrating, the Congress people are a worried lot.

The basic issue is that Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from Burj and its pages were found scattered months later in Bargari village and the probe is still to be taken to the logical conclusion. Can the Amarinder government act?

The tragedy is that those in power just refuse to learn lesson. However, Capt Amarinder singh himself is a historian and knows the repercussion of denial of justice.

Punjab is witnessing repeat of denial of justice.

All the accused in the Sikh-Nirnkari clash of April 13, 1978 at Amritsar were acquitted by the court on January 4, 1980. Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh was gunned down at his fortified residence on April 24, 1980 by Ranjit Singh who was not linked to any radical organisation.

It was connivance-cum-incompetence that produced the tragedy beginning April 1978 and the price the country paid was too heavy. This is just part of the record and recent history.

The recent history has a lesson- justice must not be denied.

The remaining cases associated with sacrilege must be taken to the logical conclusion. History has its own ways otherwise.

The problem now is that the high court verdict has set the trend.

  

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Damdami Taksal collaborates in Sikh religio-political domain with BJP that is eyeing Punjab in 2027 Assembly elections

Of Saffron Turbans , BJP and the Sikhs Jagtar Singh Chandigarh:  The Maharashtra government released ads in newspapers earlier regarding function to commemorate 350 th martyrdom anniversary of the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, in Navi Mumbai. Guru Tegh Bahadur was martyred in Delhi on the orders of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The Guru   opted for this supreme sacrifice for human rights and religious freedom. There should be nothing unusual about a state government inserting such ad in the newspapers. However, it was unusual at one level. The leaders whose pictures the ad carried included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, his deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde and others.   What was striking about this ad was that all these leaders donned turbans with saffron being the dominant colour. The Ninth Sikh Guru sacrificed his life for the cause of humanity and human rights. It may be mention...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab

  Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in the Doaba heartland—an area where Dalit social and religious formations wield considerable influence—has once again revived the debate on the role of deras in Punjab’s complex religio-political landscape. Punjab, a border state that has historically witnessed alternating cycles of violent and remarkably peaceful mobilisations over more than a century, continues to remain politically sensitive and socially layered. This is typical Punjab whose political discourse has invariably been dictated by the Sikh religio-political discourse, at least till recently. This dominant Panthic religio-political discourse has now got fragmented over the period, thereby yielding space to new permutations and combinations in the state’s religio-political matrix. It can safely be said that Punjab is in a flux. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Damage to institution of Akal Takht symbolising Sikh sovereignty more important dimension of current crisis in Sikh domain

  Ideological Damage to Akal Takht most important dimension of Akali Crisis Ground Zero By Jagtar Singh The Sikh religio-political discourse entered a new phase on Baisakhi 2025 — the historic day on which Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699, created the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, completing the ideological foundation laid by Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh faith. Significant developments emerged from the well-attended Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) conference held at Takht Sri Damdama Sahib on April 13. It was the first major public appearance of Sukhbir Singh Badal since his re-election as party president on April 12, marking his return to the helm after a brief interregnum. Sukhbir, who first succeeded his father, Parkash Singh Badal, as party president in 2008, resumes leadership of a party long dominated by the Badal family—an influence that has spanned over three decades, the longest in the SAD’s history. For months, the religio-political landscape of Punjab has remained i...
Post a Comment
Read more