Motivated leaks by AAP on 2015 police firing incident: Akali Dal

Chandigarh, March 3 (IANS) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday said motivated leaks by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government with regard to the SIT report into the Kotkapura firing incident of 2015, and its timing for presentation in a court were a gross violation of the April 2021 Punjab and Haryana high court order.

The Akali Dal said the manner in which AAP was judging and even announcing who would be found guilty in probes being done by the SIT into the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing incidents had made it clear that it was following a policy of political vendetta against its political opponents, instead of ensuring justice in the cases.

In a statement here, SAD general secretary Parambans Singh Romana said contrary to the directions of the high court, the AAP government was making public announcements indicating it not only had control over the outcome of the probes but also had access to the probe reports.

He said the high court had in its order on April 9, 2021, quashed the investigation carried out by the Congress government in the Kotkapura firing case and even indicted it for misusing the issue for petty political gains.

"It also noted that a malicious and biased investigation had been conducted into the case by former SIT head Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh (now AAP legislator) simply to implicate the top SAD leadership in the case. The high court disbanded the SIT and directed that a fresh SIT be constituted barring Pratap. It also stipulated that there shall not be any interference in the functioning of the SIT and that the latter would report only to the magistrate concerned.

"It was also stipulated that no part of the SIT report would be leaked before filing the final report before the magistrate."

The Akali Dal leader said instead of following the court directives, the present AAP government was going one step further than the previous Congress government.