Mohinder Singh, 72, wept while speaking about how his son Krishna Bhagwan was shot dead by the Punjab Police in Faridkot’s Behbal Kalan in 2015. Two months after becoming chief minister he never came back or fulfilled his promise,” he says.
The Congress government in Punjab in 2017 promised justice for Punjab in five emotive cases, including the theft of the Guru Granth Sahib and the holy book of the Sikhs, and then the killing of two local protesters by police in 2015. These incidents have happened within a radius of about 10 km in the villages of Faridkot. However, today there is an atmosphere of anger towards the Congress and especially the CM for not fulfilling the promises in this epicenter.
A Punjabi idiom that is most commonly heard here is “Captain teh badal aur raale-mile ho nain (The captain and the cloud have a secret understanding)”. People believe that this is to blame for the flurry of Special Investigation Teams (SITs) and commissions of inquiry that failed to punish the culprits since 2015. “Badal was in power when the firing took place. They were responsible. Captain has been in power for 4.5 years but Badal is free,” Mohinder Singh told News18 in Behbal Khurd village.
Mohinder Singh, whose son was murdered in Faridkot’s Behbal Kalan in 2015, says he has no hope from the investigation.
Two separate SITs were formed this May, one led by IG Naunihal Singh to probe the Behbal Kalan firing, in which Krishna Bhagwan and Gurjit Singh were killed, and the other under ADGP LK Yadav, who died nearby. K was investigating police firing in Kotkapura town, in which several were injured. Yadav-led SIT had last month questioned Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal. “But we have not heard anything from IG Naunihal Singh’s SIT. We don’t want to deal with this SIT. We have no hope,” says Singh.
Singh’s grandson and deceased Krishna Bhagwan’s son Prabhdeep Singh said this is because he feared that the new SIT might only charge police officers with the then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini but leave Badal. The earlier SIT now led by AAP leader Kunwar Pratap Singh was “on the right track,” he says. “In 2015, Rahul Gandhi also came to our house with Capt. Congress leaders want action against Badal but the Captain is completely silent on the issue. Why?” says Prabhdeep Singh.
Restlessness in Gurudwaras too
Granthi Gora Singh still remembers every detail of June 1, 2015, when it all started from his gurdwara in Berg Jawahar Singh Wala village. Around 1:30 pm someone stole the Sarup (book) of Guru Granth Sahib from here. Singh has lodged an FIR. On June 29, some objectionable posters were put up on the walls of the Gurudwara. On October 10 of the same year, some torn pages of the holy book were found near a gurdwara in Bargari village, five kilometers away.
Granthi Gora Singh in Gurdwara Berg Jawahar Singh Wala from where the holy book was stolen in 2015
An SIT formed last month under IG Surinder Parmar for these three cases claimed a breakthrough with the arrest of six people linked to Dera Sacha Sauda recently. “I was here when the police brought him to the Gurdwara for investigation and later took him to Sikhan Wala village where he had hidden the holy book after stealing it. He has confessed to his crime,” Gora Singh told News18. He said the police should now find out “whether there was a bigger conspiracy.”
Gora Singh and his wife first conducted lie-detector tests by the CBI and made several trips to Faridkot to testify before earlier SITs and commissions. “People here are upset because they think the real mastermind is at large. Yes, now six people have been arrested, but we will know this only when they are convicted by the court,” says Singh. He narrates how Mahinderpal Bittu, an alleged mastermind of the events and Dera Sacha Sauda supporter, was murdered in jail in 2019.
The CBI, which had earlier investigated the cases, had filed closure reports against some of the accused arrested by the Punjab Police in the previous years.
The Sikh priests did not buy the new doctrine at the Bargari Gurdwara where the torn pages of the holy book were found. Simranjit Mann faction of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD-MAAN) has been protesting from this gurdwara since July 1, demanding the arrest of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal. “Sikhs supported the Congress in 2017 as they were promised justice in cases of sacrilege and police firing. Now, people will punish the Congress in the 2022 elections,” said SAD-Mann district chief Gurdeep Singh.
Congress’s fire under control, AAP’s lead
A senior Punjab Congress leader said the Chief Minister is silent on sacrilege-police firing cases as the High Court has clearly said that there should be no political interference in the SIT probe. “We are expecting all the SITs to complete their investigation by August and close the affected people after six years,” the senior leader said on condition of anonymity. Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu recently visited Kotkapura and Bargari and criticized the CM for not acting in the cases, the party unit is divided on the matter.
“It seems that time is running out and people are getting angry. If action is not taken soon then we may find it difficult to campaign and enter villages,” a Congress MLA from the area told News18, adding that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may benefit here instead. AAP had won the Faridkot Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and two of the three assembly seats in Faridkot district in 2017. Some local people are talking of giving a chance to AAP and saying that they will not vote for Akali Dal or Congress. A group of locals said, “SIT’s Kunwar Vijay Pratap, who was trying his best to get justice for the Sikhs, also resigned and joined the AAP.”
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