Chandigarh: The Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission, holding inquiry into incidents of beadbi of Guru Granth Sahib in Punjab and related incidents- including the October 2015 police firing at Behbal Kalan, has reportedly told Punjab DGP Suresh Arora to look into the reports of tempering with the bullets that were primary evidence in the firing case.
On 14 of October 2015 the Punjab police had opened gun-fire on Sikhs who were staging a sit-in on a link road leading to Behbal Kalan village to protest against the incident of beadbi of Guru Granth Sahib at Bagari village. Two Sikhs namely, Bhai Krishan Bhagwan Singh and Bhai Gurjeet Singh were killed by the police in this firing.
According to a report in The Tribune (TT): “Earlier, the Justice Zora Singh (retd) Commission, set up by the then SAD (Badal)-BJP government to probe the firing, had expressed suspicion over the guns used against the people who had gathered to protest against incidents of sacrilege in the state”.
“The commission had stated that an effort was being made by the police to make it unclear whether an SLR (self-loading rifle), an AK-47 or some other gun was used in the firing. The policemen deployed had carried SLRs”, the Tribune report says while referring to the report of the commission.
It had recently come into the light that the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) has found that the bullets recovered from the bodies of the deceased were extensively tempered; due to which the CFSL observed that it was not possible to match the bullets with the weapon from which these bullets were fired.
Role of the Punjab police is under serious questions in this case. In response to a criminal complaint filed by a relative of one of the deceased persons in a Faridkot court, the police termed the police officials responsible for the firing as “unidentified”. The fact of tempering with the evidence shows that the police forces is trying to protect the culprits.
In this situation Justice Ranjit Singh Commission’s move to ask the Punjab police officials, instead of some independent probe agency, to inquire into the matter of bullet-tempering also falls under questions.
Past experiance shows that these probe commissions fail to nail the culprits of human rights abuses particularly where the high police officials are involved.
WATCH VIDEO: – EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS of BEHBAL KALAN FIRING INCIDENT: