The Supreme Court on Tuesday transferred from Faridkot to Chandigarh the trial against Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and others in the 2015 desecration case of the Guru Granth Sahib.
A bench of justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia accepted the contention of the petitioners that there was a threat to their lives.
The top court was hearing transfer petitions filed by Dera followers Sukhjinder Singh, Shakti Singh, Ranjit Singh, Nishan Singh, Baljit Singh, Randeep Singh and Narinder Kumar Sharma.
Pradeep Singh, an accused in 2015 Faridkot sacrilege case, was killed in November 2022 by five unidentified bike-borne men in Punjab’s Kotkapura.
After murder of Pradeep, other accused had moved the top court seeking the transfer of the trial in the three sacrilege cases to a court out of Punjab, citing security threat.
The incidents related to the theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of the Guru Ganth Sahib, putting up handwritten sacrilegious posters and torn pages of the holy book found scattered at Bargari had taken place in Faridkot in 2015.
These incidents had led to protests in Faridkot. In the police firing at protesters in October 2015, two persons were killed in Behbal Kalan while some people were injured at Kotkapura in Faridkot.
