Days after AAP legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira was summoned by a Fazilka court in a drug case, party's Punjab MLAs came out in his support and termed the action as a classic case of "political vendetta" against him.
The AAP MLAs said in a release that they have complete faith in the abilities of Khaira, who had been fighting corruption, injustice and mafia in Punjab for over a decade.
"Unable to digest his onslaught, the previous Badal regime had registered six FIR's against him, which fell flat when subjected to scrutiny of law," the legislators said.
AAP Punjab president Bhagwant Mann said, "As the matter is in the court of law, the party has decided to consult it with legal experts."
He said it will not be appropriate to comment on the issue till the final verdict is out but "political vendetta" could not be ruled out in the case.
The MLAs said the case in which Khaira has been summoned was allegedly initiated by the Badal government in March 2015, which set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the IGP Bathinda Zone and tried their best to "involve" Khaira in it.
"The SIT could find no incriminating evidence against Khaira, nor did his name figure in the FIR of the drug cae, similarly he was not named in the chargesheet or by any independent witness during the course of trial," they claimed.
The AAP MLAs said both the traditional parties of Congress and Akali Dal were "hand in glove to defame and tarnish" the image of Khaira because he has been "exposing their misdeeds and corrupt leaders".
Meanwhile, Khaira said that the manner and tenor in which the Congress and SAD-BJP alliance launched an attack on him over the summon clearly exposes the deep nexus and the "friendly tie-up" between them.
It was surprising that these parties have never attacked each other on "blatant corruption and neck deep" involvement of their leaders in drugs smuggling, he said.
On October 31, a court in Fazilka sentenced nine persons to imprisonment in a trans-border heroin smuggling racket which surfaced in 2015.
The court also issued summons to Khaira under Section 319 of the CrPC following an application from the prosecution. He has been told to appear on November 30.
The nine persons were arrested on March 9, 2015, along with 2-kg heroin, 24 gold biscuits, one country-made pistol, two Pakistani SIM cards and a SUV.
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