A court in Punjab’s Faridkot Thursday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident but granted relief to his father and former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.
Both the Akali leaders last week had moved the Faridkot court for anticipatory bail.
After hearing arguments on March 14, the court of additional district and sessions judge, Faridkot had reserved its order.
The court dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, said one of his counsels Arshdeep Singh Cheema.
However, the court granted anticipatory bail to the former chief minister, Cheema said.
The Special Investigation Team of Punjab Police probing the police firing case last month had filed a charge sheet in a court in Faridkot naming the then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and then Deputy Sukhbir Singh Badal and ex-DGP Sumedh Saini and others.
Sukhbir Badal and Saini were named as “masterminds of conspiracy for use of illegal excessive force to hide the inaction” of the state on three sacrilege incidents in Faridkot. The then chief minister Badal was blamed for “facilitating the execution of the conspiracy” in the 7,000-page charge sheet.
The incidents related to the theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib, putting up handwritten sacrilegious posters, and torn pages of the holy book being found scattered at Bargari in Faridkot in 2015.
These incidents had triggered protests and two persons – Gurjeet Singh and Kishan Bhagwan Singh–were killed in Behbal Kalan and few injured at Kotkapura in Faridkot in police firing.
