Chandigarh, Aug 16 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Sunday that she has written to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah to demand a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the two murderous attacks on party President Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Terming both crimes as a “deep-rooted conspiracy” involving both politicians and police officers, SAD MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur, who addressed a rally in Guruharsahai town, the second phase of the party’s “Punjab Bachao” campaign, also displayed a post-surgery picture of the severely injured arm of the SAD Chief as well as the one-and-a-half-foot-long ‘kirch’ (dagger) used by the assailant to attack him.
“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 said.
Terming the incident at Mata Sahib Gurudwara in Maharashtra’s Nanded as well as the December 4, 2024, attack at the Sri Darbar Sahib as part of the conspiracy to eliminate Sukhbir Singh Badal and weaken the party, Harsimrat Badal 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”.
The SAD Chief’s wife also disclosed that in the case of the attack in Nanded when Sukhbir Singh Badal was coming downstairs of the Mata Sahib Gurudwara Devan, the assailant, in the garb of a Nihang Sikh, 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.”
She also asserted that such anti-national elements wanted to destroy the hard won peace of Punjab but that these divisive acts would never cow down the Shiromani Akali Dal and that Sukhbir Singh Badal would rebound even stronger than before.
Harsimrat Kaur also said the SAD President was in “chardikala” after being discharged and that the sight of a “baaj” (hawk) circling his hospital window had further strengthened his resolve to serve the “Panth” to the best of his abilities.
Asserting that nothing could sway the SAD from its path, she noted that “our strength, our pillar, our everything is our Guru. So now, I am challenging these divisive forces — the more you try to attack us and finish us, the stronger we will emerge”.
–IANS
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