Chandigarh, June 4, 2019 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal today asked the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to tell the people of the state if he had personally and directly issued all the orders for police firing and consequent killings, including those of farmers, during his previous and current tenures.
“ Amarinder has been telling the people that the police cannot resort to firing nor kill agitators without express orders from the Chief Minister of the state.
If that is what he truly believes in, then he must explain not only the death of Jaspal Singh in police custody in Faridkot but also the killing of at least four innocent farmers in police firing in 2003 and 2004 – three farmers in the peaceful agitation in the Trident face-off near Barnala and another, Angrej Singh, at Manaanwala (Amritsar), both during Amarinder’s previous tenure as Chief Minister.
Another 80 farmers were seriously injured in the indiscriminate police firing in just these two incidents. Who should be held responsible for these deaths and serious injuries to the Punjab farmers during Amarinder regime?” asked a former Punjab cabinet minister and SAD General Secretary Mr Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal in a statement here today.
The Akali leader also wanted the CM to come clean on who had actually issued the orders for firing on these innocent and peacefully protesting farmers.” Did you order the police firing that resulted in the death of at least four peaceful farmers while they and their colleagues were protesting against government indifference to their problems in the Barmala agitation?
Going by your current stand and assertions, the police could not have opened fire without direct orders from you. If that is indeed the case, then should you not own moral and constitutional responsibility? If not, then why are you misleading the people by brazenly lying on the sacrilege issue as well as on other related events in this regard?” asked Mr Grewal.
The SAD General Secretary also asked the CM if he would take direct responsibility every time his police crossed the constitutional line, as it has been doing only too often during his tenures. “Would you take responsibility for the Faridkot custodial killing also? And who ordered the ASI to brutally thrash a boy in Bathinda district the other day?”
Mr Grewal said that not only did the SAD BJP government act against the accused police personnel in the sacrilege related firing incident most promptly and strictly as per the law, but it even set up an SIT to investigate the sacrilege cases. It was that very SIT, and not the one set up by you, which finally cracked the sacrilege case. It took the SIT three years in all – 18 months each under the SAD-BJP and the Congress tenures respectively.
The Akali leader asked the CM to stop following his predecessor Congress Chief Ministers and Union Leaders in politicizing a sacred religious issue. “Punjab has already suffered too much because of the Congress conspiracies to keep the people of the state and especially the Khalsa Panth divided through massive misinformation campaigns.
It is time the Congress realized how deep are the wounds on the Punjabi and the Sikh psyche inflicted by the Congress’ politics of intrigues and conspiracies,” concluded the Akali leader.
