Chandigarh, Feb 9 (PTI) Punjab Police has arrested Pardeep Kler, an accused in the 2015 sacrilege cases, has been arrested from Haryana’s Gurugram. Kler was being brought to Faridkot, a senoir police officer said on Friday.
Dera Sacha Sauda follower Kler and two other accused — Sandeep Bareta and Harsh Dhuri — have been declared proclaimed offenders.
Kler is accused of being one of the conspirators in the incidents related to desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in Faridkot in 2015.
The incidents related to the theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of Guru Ganth Sahib, putting up handwritten sacrilegious posters and torn pages of the holy book found scattered at Bargari in Faridkot. These incidents had led to anti-sacrilege protests in Faridkot.
In the police firing at anti-sacrilege protesters in October 2015, two persons were killed in Behbal Kalan while some persons were injured at Kotkapura in Faridkot.
Notably, an investigation report of the Punjab Police on the 2015 sacrilege cases had pinned the blame on Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda sect for the incidents of the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib. Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had been named in the three sacrilege incidents.
In 2015, the then SAD-BJP government had handed over the three cases — theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib from a Burj Jawahar Singh Wala gurdwara; putting up of handwritten sacrilegious posters in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala; and torn pages of the holy book found at Bargari — to the CBI for probe.
Later, the Congress-led Punjab government had handed over the probe to a special investigation team of the Punjab Police in September 2018 after the state assembly passed a resolution withdrawing consent to the CBI to investigate these cases, noting lack of progress in the investigation. PTI CHS VSD SKY SKY
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