A Punjab Police Special Investigation Team probing the 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident has summoned Shiromani Akali Dal president and the then deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to appear before it on August 30 for questioning in the case, according to officials.
Sukhbir also held the Home portfolio at the time of the incident. The summons were issued recently.
Badal, however, told reporters on Thursday that he had not received any summons and that he will appear before the SIT when he receives one.
Responding to a question, Badal alleged that the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) told lies targeting the previous Akali government on the sacrilege issue and pressed all the investigation teams but none of their charges was found to be true.
The Congress and the AAP should apologise before the people they lied to in order to garner votes, he added.
Recently, the SIT had questioned former director general of police Sumedh Saini here.
SIT head Additional Director General of Police L K Yadav had summoned the former state police chief for appearance.
Saini has been named an accused in the 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing incidents in Faridkot.
Last month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a bunch of petitions filed by Saini and other accused police officers against the Punjab Police probe into the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing.
Saini and others had demanded quashing of the FIR and chargesheet filed by the SIT and that the case be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
A ‘bir’ (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from a gurdwara, handwritten sacrilegious posters were put up and torn pages of the holy book were found scattered in separate incidents in Faridkot in 2015.
These incidents led to anti-sacrilege protests in Faridkot.
In police firing at protesters in October that year, two people were killed in Behbal Kalan and a few injured in Kotkapura.
