Guruharsahai, August 16
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) senior leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today disclosed she had written to union home minister Amit Shah to demand a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the two murderous attacks on party president Sukhbir Singh Badal even as she termed them as a deep rooted conspiracy involving both politicians and police officers.
The Bathinda MP, who addressed a mammoth rally here under the second phase of the party’s “Punjab Bachao” campaign, also displayed a post-surgery picture of the severely injured arm of Mr Sukhbir Badal as well as the one and a half foot long ‘kirch’ (dagger) used by the assailant to attack the latter. “More than 150 stitches have been placed to close the wound from both sides and also from the inside. This is because the dagger, which had a sharpened tip, went through the flesh”, she asserted.
Terming the entire episode at Nanded Sahib as well as the December 4, 2024 attack at Sri Darbar Sahib as part of a deep rooted conspiracy to eliminate Badal and weaken the SAD, Harsimrat said, “This is why I have requested the union home minister to order a NIA probe into both incidents. This is because the ISI agent who attacked the SAD president at Sri Darbar Sahib was facilitated by a Superintendent of Police and was even able to secure bail in this heinous crime within a space of three months”.
Harsimrat also disclosed that in the case of the attack in Nanded when Badal was coming down the stairs of the Gurdwara Mata Sahib Devan, the assailant, in the garb of a Nihang Singh, first pretended to escort him down and then turned around to attack him. “Such a cowardly act cannot be done by a true Sikh in a place of worship and the entire episode needs to be probed by the NIA to get to the bottom of the attacks as well as the persons who are sponsoring them”.
Hrsimrat also asserted that such Guru Dokhi and anti-national elements wanted to destroy the hard won peace of Punjab but that these divisive acts would never cow down the SAD and that Sukhbir Badal would rebound even stronger than before. She also disclosed that the SAD president was in “chardikala” after being discharged and that the sight of a “baaj’ circling his hospital window had further strengthened his resolve to serve the “Panth” to the best of his abilities.