Punjab government approves prosecution of Ram Rahim
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday approved prosecution of Dera Sacha Sauda CEO Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insa in the 2015 Guru Granth Sahib blasphemy case. The Punjab government has approved prosecution of Dera Sirsa chief Gurmeet in three cases. The whole incident started in June 2015 when a copy of Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from the Gurudwara in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in Faridkot.
Following this, evil posters against the holy book were put up in Jawahar Singh Wala and Bargadi villages in Faridkot. In October of the same year, several torn pages of the holy book were found near the Gurudwara in Bargari. To take action in this case, permission from the government is required to prosecute Baba Gurmeet under Section 295A.
Case handed over to CBI
Since then, large-scale protests have occurred in Punjab. State police opened fire on protesters, killing two agitators. As a result of this incident, social and political unrest in Punjab further intensified. A total of 12 people have been named in three interrelated cases related to the theft and desecration of copies of the Guru Granth Sahib. The previous coalition government of Shiromani Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party had handed over the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
challenged in court
In the High Court, the Dera chief challenged the Punjab government’s notification dated September 6, 2018, in which the government withdrew its consent to hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In his petition, the Dera chief sought direction to the CBI to continue investigating the blasphemy case. In March this year, the high court had referred the petition to a larger bench to decide whether the state government’s consent to the CBI probe could be withdrawn later. The court has since stayed further proceedings. The Punjab government has approached the Supreme Court against the order.
