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Bibi Jagir Kaur, acquitted in daughter’s death case, a Badal loyalist who became SGPC head

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Through the 18 years of her trial in the case, Bibi Jagir Kaur never lost the support of Badals and Akali Dal.

Chandigarh: Six years after former Punjab cabinet minister and ex-president of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) Bibi Jagir Kaur was convicted of illegal confinement and forcing her daughter into abortion, the Punjab and Haryana High Court Tuesday acquitted her of all charges.

In 2000, Jagir Kaur, then SGPC chief, was accused of murdering her 19-year-old daughter Harpreet. But the trial court dropped the murder charge in 2012.

A senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader presently heading the party’s women wing in Punjab, Jagir Kaur is a known Badal loyalist.

Through the course of her trial and conviction over 18 years, Jagir Kaur never lost the support of Badals and the party. From propping her up as the SGPC chief to providing her election support over several polls, the Badals always accommodated her.

On Tuesday, the high court provided her relief even as the complainant in the case vowed to move the Supreme Court.

Badal’s blue-eyed

Born to the locally prominent Lobana family in Jalandhar, Jagir Kaur started her career as a mathematics teacher at the Begowal Government Secondary School.

When her husband died of cancer in 1982, she got involved in local socio-religious activities and took over the Sant Prem Singh Muralewale dera at Begowal after her father. The dera has immense hold and influence over the Lobana community.

She joined the Akali Dal in 1995 and was elected an SGPC member a year later. In 1997, she was given the party ticket for the assembly elections and won from Bholath constituency. Despite being a first time MLA, she was taken in as a cabinet minister by Parkash Singh Badal.

In March 1999, due to a tussle between Badal and then SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra, the latter was removed and replaced by Jagir Kaur. She was hailed as the first woman SGPC chief.

In November 2000, she was forced to step down as SGPC chief after registration of an FIR against her by the CBI in her daughter’s murder case.

Although Jagir Kaur claimed to be a victim of political agenda, the case against her became a prominent election issue before the 2002 assembly elections. However, that didn’t deter Badal from giving her the ticket to contest from Bholath a second time. The Akalis lost, but she managed to retain her seat.

In the 2007 assembly elections, she lost the Bholath seat even as the Akalis came to power in the state. However, she managed to wrest it back in 2012 and was inducted as a cabinet minister.


Also read: Sukhbir Badal’s offer to resign does nothing to heal the rift in Shiromani Akali Dal


The case

The sensational case hit national headlines in April 2000 when Harpreet, alias Rosy, died under mysterious circumstances. She was allegedly being shifted from the residence of a family friend where she was staying in Phagwara to a hospital in Ludhiana and died on the way.

Jagir Kaur claimed that her daughter fell ill and died while being rushed for treatment to a hospital. She was cremated at Jagir Kaur’s home in Begowal village in Kapurthala.

Jagir Kaur was the SGPC chief at the time and the cremation was attended by the state’s top guns, including then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Media outcry followed Harpreet’s death forcing Badal to constitute a Punjab police team to probe the charges.

A week after her death, Kamaljit Singh, a Begowal resident and small-time Akali worker, claimed to be Harpreet’s lover and approached the high court for a probe. He told the court that Jagir Kaur didn’t approve of their relationship and gave the court proof of their “secret wedding”.

He alleged that she was pregnant but was forced to abort the child by Jagir Kaur, who had probably killed her too. He named Badal too in his petition for being party to destruction of evidence, but the court did not issue a notice to him.

In June 2000, the high court ordered CBI to probe the case.

Speaking to ThePrint Tuesday, Singh said, “I am very upset with Jagir Kaur’s acquittal. I will challenge it in the Supreme Court.”

He said he twice wrote to the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking the high-profile case to be moved to another bench.

“I had, in my request to the chief justice, listed several significant reasons why the case should not be heard by this particular bench, but no cognisance was taken of my request,” he said.


Also read: Punjab’s Akali Dal crisis reaches Delhi, gurdwara body president steps down


Conviction in 2012

In March 2012, a special CBI court convicted Jagir Kaur and sentenced her to five years’ rigorous imprisonment for illegal confinement and forceful abortion of her daughter.

The court dropped murder charges against her and all other accused.

Having had just been inducted as a cabinet minister in the Punjab government, she had to resign and was jailed immediately.

Along with her, six other people had been tried for her daughter’s murder. While two were acquitted by the trial court, four others were convicted for destruction of evidence.

On Tuesday, a division bench of Justice A.B. Chaudhari and Justice Kuldip Singh acquitted all the other accused too.

This article incorrectly mentioned that Bibi Jagir Kaur was acquitted of killing her daughter on Tuesday, 4 December. She had been acquitted of that charge in 2012. The error is regretted.

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