Congress MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu demanded that the Punjab Police probe report be made public. (File)
Congress MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu today demanded that the Punjab police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe report into the 2015 firings at people protesting in Kotakpura and Behbal Kalan against sacrilegious incidents to Guru Granth Sahib be made public.
Mr Sidhu raised the demand during his visit to Gurdwara Burj Jawahar Singh Wala in the Faridkot district from where a copy of the Sikh holy book was stolen in 2015.
"More Law, Less Justice... Justice Delayed is Justice Denied," Mr Sidhu later said in his tweet.
The Amritsar East legislator raised the demands days after the Punjab and Haryana high court quashed the probe report by a Punjab Police SIT, headed by senior IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, and asked the state government to set up a new SIT without Vijay Singh.
After offering prayers at the gurdwara on Baisakhi day, Mr Sidhu said the way the report of Justice Ranjit Singh Commission was made public, the report prepared by the Punjab Police SIT too should be made public.
Vijay Pratap Singh was heading the SIT, probing into the 2015 Kotakpura and Behbal Kalan firings at demonstrators protesting against the sacrilegious incidents at Bargari in Faridkot. At Behbal Kalan, two people were killed in the police firing.
The Congress, after coming to power in 2017 had set up an inquiry commission headed by Justice Ranjit Singh to probe into the sacrilegious incidents.
The cricketer-turned-politician appeared to be targeting his own Congress-led government in the state by asking why advocates responsible for the presentation of facts were "weak".
"Law always gives verdict on the basis of fact. Today entire Punjab is asking if there was any other case more important than this," Mr Sidhu said.
"Why lawyers, responsible for the presentation of facts, were weak? Why top lawyers were not hired?" he asked, adding that people of Punjab have been waiting for justice for the last six years.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had quashed the SIT probe report on pleas by former sub-inspector and the then SHO Gurdeep Singh of Kotkapura police station, challenging a case filed against them August 2018.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had earlier said his government would challenge the high court order in the Supreme Court.
Another Punjab police SIT is investigating the 2015 incidents related to the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib.
The state government had handed over the probe to an SIT of the state police in September 2018 after the state assembly passed a resolution withdrawing the consent to the CBI to probe these cases, noting a lack of progress in the investigation.
In February this year, the CBI had handed over all case diaries and papers related to the 2015 incidents to the Punjab police on the Punjab and Haryana High Court's directions.
The previous SAD-BJP government had handed over these three cases involving the sacrilege to the Sikhs' holy book to the CBI for the probe. The cases included that of a theft of a "bir" (copy) of Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala gurdwara on June 1, 2015, besides putting up of hand-written posters in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on September 25 and torn pages of the holy book being found at Bargari on October 12, 2015 in Faridkot.