A five-mem­ber del­e­ga­tion of po­lit­i­cal party lead­ers of Pun­jab, co­or­di­nated by AAP MLA and hu­man rights ac­tivist Harvin­der Singh Phoolka, met the Chief Elec­tion Com­mis­sioner –Sunil Arora and ap­prised him that the re­moval of IG Kun­war Vi­jay Par­tap Singh from SIT, had ob­structed the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing and sac­ri­lege of Guru Granth Sahib cases and sought his im­me­di­ate re­in­state­ment.

A del­e­ga­tion com­pris­ing Pun­jab Pradesh Con­gress Com­mit­tee Pres­i­dent Sunil Jakhar, Pun­jab Cab­i­net Min­is­ter Tri­pat Ra­jin­der Singh Ba­jwa, Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in the Pun­jab As­sem­bly, Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema, MLA Harvin­der Singh Phoolka and AAP rebel MLA Nazar Singh Man­shahia sub­mit­ted a joint mem­o­ran­dum to the CEC, stat­ing that, “Akali Dal has been try­ing its best to de­lay the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but they have not suc­ceeded in their mo­tives so far.  Very valu­able ev­i­dence was de­stroyed and tem­pered with dur­ing the Akali gov­ern­ment. With great dif­fi­culty, the SIT is col­lect­ing the lost ev­i­dence. Now by fil­ing a false com­plaint and mis­lead­ing the Com­mis­sion they have ob­tained this or­der of trans­fer which will not only de­lay the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but will also ad­versely af­fect the line of in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The del­e­gates im­pressed upon the Chief Com­mis­sioner that the man­ner in which the Badal Dal is gloat­ing about their vic­tory in en­sur­ing that Kun­war Vi­jay Par­tap Singh has been re­moved, they have suc­ceeded in giv­ing the im­pres­sion to the com­mon man in Pun­jab that the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion is work­ing in co­horts with the Badal Dal.  This is a se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ment which ques­tions the in­tegrity and neu­tral­ity of the ECI and the ECI will do well to take im­me­di­ate steps to undo this.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, all lead­ers men­tioned that the re­moval of po­lice of­fi­cer can threaten peace in Pun­jab as peo­ple are still very up­set about the sac­ri­lege is­sue which had re­sulted into the in­dis­crim­i­nate po­lice fir­ing killing two peo­ple in Oc­to­ber 2015.

The re­in­state­ment of IG Kun­war Par­tap Singh is nec­es­sary to main­tain peace in Pun­jab and con­duct of elec­tions in a free and fair man­ner.”

Urg­ing the Chief Elec­tion Com­mis­sioner to re­view its de­ci­sion, the del­e­ga­tion fur­ther stated that they wanted to pre­sent true and cor­rect facts be­fore the Com­mis­sion and “re­quests for re­view and with­drawal of the or­der of trans­fer. This is nec­es­sary to main­tain peace in Pun­jab and con­duct of elec­tions in a free and fair man­ner.”

It may be noted that since the re­moval of IG Kun­war Vi­jay Par­tap Singh from the SIT, mem­bers of the vic­tim fam­i­lies –Sukhraj Singh son of mar­tyr Kr­is­han Bhag­wan Singh, Sadhu Singh –fa­ther of mar­tyr Gur­jeet Singh, Dal Khalsa lead­ers Harpal Singh Cheema and Kan­warpal Singh, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Tak­sali Akali Dal, the Aam Aadmi Party and hu­man rights ac­tivist Jag­mo­han Singh have also met the Chief Elec­toral Of­fi­cer in Chandi­garh and through him im­pressed upon the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion not to ob­struct jus­tice es­pe­cially in such a sen­si­tive case which in­volves killing of two peo­ple and the sac­ri­lege of Guru Granth Sahib.

Ac­tivists of the Bar­gari Mor­cha had also led a protest demon­stra­tion against the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion two days ago.

Brief­ing the me­dia, Harvin­der Singh Phoolka said that the CEC has promised to look into the mat­ter afresh and ac­knowl­edged that it had also re­ceived the rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab –Capt. Amarinder Singh.

When chas­tised by the Supreme Court of In­dia, the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion acted with God­speed and yes­ter­day de­barred hate mon­ger­ing by lead­ers of many po­lit­i­cal par­ties. The peo­ple of Pun­jab await its de­ci­sion in this ex­tremely sen­si­tive case.