Amarinder blames Badal for police firing on protestors

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday held his predecessor Parkash Singh Badal of the Akali Dal "squarely responsible" for the Behbal Kalan police firing in the wake of the 2015 Bargari sacrilege incident.

Amarinder Singh said that he was sure the fresh Commission of Inquiry probing the matter would expose the involvement of Badal.

"How can a SP order firing? He was clearly instructed to do so," he said, while addressing a gathering at a function in New Delhi on Saturday evening.

Two people were killed and some others injured in police firing on people who were protesting against incidents of sacrilege of Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib.

"I have all along been maintaining that Badal was behind the unwarranted police firing, which led to the death of two persons," Amarinder said.

Pointing to the spate of sacrilege incidents during the erstwhile Badal government rule, he said that it had witnessed 183 such incidents, of which 121 remained unsolved. He said that, in contrast, 13 incidents were reported since the Congress government took over (in March this year), out of which 12 had been solved.

"The Akalis have always played politics with religion, using it to further their own political ends," Amarinder Singh alleged.

--IANS

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