Bargari sacrilege: SIT finds no political link, accuses dera head of conspiracy

Seven years after the Bargari sacrilege incident that triggered violent protests in Punjab, the special investigation team (SIT) found no political involvement and concluded that the crime was committed following a conspiracy by dera followers on the directions of Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim for revenge.

Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday handed over the SIT’s final investigation report, probing three cases linked to the Bargari sacrilege incidents, to Sikh community leaders. The SIT had submitted a 467-page report to the director, Bureau of Investigation (BoI), in April-end, which HT has seen.

Sikh outfits and political parties, including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had been blaming Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal and former Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal for the sacrilege incidents at Bargari. However, the final report has no mention of any political involvement of the then SAD-BJP government or the Badals in its conclusion.

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A chargesheet, which was quashed by the Punjab and Haryana high court, was filed in the court by then SIT member IGP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh (now retired), who is now an AAP MLA. His probe found that during the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP rule in Punjab, incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib were “a pre-planned handiwork of Sukhbir Singh Badal, then DGP Sumedh Singh Saini and Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda”.

Three cases inter-connected, conspiracy by dera head

SIT head Surinder Pal Singh Parmar said that the SIT has submitted its final investigation report based on comprehensive and in-depth investigation of all three cases of sacrilege. “The SIT collected irrefutable material and circumstantial evidence and named 12 accused, including Ram Rahim, and filed chargesheets against them in these cases. We have completed our investigation as evidence leads to no further involvement in these cases,” he said.

The report reads all three cases were inter-connected and the crime was committed under a well-planned conspiracy by accused Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim.

The SIT claimed that it was Ram Rahim who ordered to carry out sacrilege to avenge the insult of sect followers by a Sikh preacher. “Some dera followers arrested in connection with the sacrilege revealed that Mohinderpal Singh Bittu, who was killed in a Nabha jail in 2019, told them that the sacrilege was executed at the behest of the dera chief.

During a diwan (religious congregation) on March 22, 2015, Harjinder Singh Manjhi, a Sikh preacher, asked some dera followers to remove their lockets or leave. Bittu raised the issue with dera’s national committee members Sandeep Bareta, Pardeep Kler and Harsh Dhuri, who saw it as an act of sacrilege and decided to take revenge. The sacrilege conspiracy was hatched thereafter,” the report said.

In the final conclusion, the SIT named and presented chargesheets against 12 dera men along with Ram Rahim as accused in FIR 63 (registered after a ‘bir’ was stolen from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village), eight people in FIR 117 (registered after derogatory posters were put up at Bargari on September 24, 2015, night) and 10 dera followers in FIR 128 (registered after torn pages of a ‘bir’ were found scattered near Bargari gurdwara on October 12, 2015) at Bajakhana police station.

Who tried to save the dera?

“The members of the newly constituted ‘SIT’ have gone through the entire material on record along with the evidence gathered by the CBI and thereafter set investigation of these cases into motion and have taken initiatives to gather more evidence in order to take these cases to their logical end. The SIT has made sincere and best efforts in collection of evidence despite the fact that almost six years had already passed from the registration of these cases when the investigation was taken over from the CBI,” it reads.

Former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said: “During our regime, we had asked the SIT to probe the political links in sacrilege incidents to reveal who tried to save the dera. The final report was submitted after the AAP formed the government. It is strange no one among them raised this issue with the SIT that why political links are not probed. Chief minister Bhagwant Mann talked a lot on this issue during polls but now why is he silent?” he added.