Reacting to the Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) decision to challenge the CBI closure in the Bargari cases, the Chief Minister lashed out at its President Sukhbir Badal for trying to "fool" the people by pretending to be concerned about the issue.
Instead of probing the matter himself, Badal, who was then Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state, had been responsible for sending the first three cases related to the Bargari issue to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Chief Minister said.
Now that the CBI has completed its probe and filed a closure report, Badal is getting the jitters, indicating complicity at some level in the entire affair, he added.
"How else can the SAD decision to challenge the CBI decision in court be explained," asked Amarinder Singh, lambasting Badal for once again seeking to politicise the sensitive issue and possibly to wriggle out of his own responsibility in ensuring a fair and thorough probe into the matter.
The Chief Minister asked Badal not to forget the simple fact that even now, when the CBI has filed the closure report which he wants to challenge, it is the NDA government in power at the Centre, with his own party the SAD a part of it.
The Chief Minister asked the state's Advocate General Atul Nanda to look into all the legal options to take the case to its logical conclusion.
Last week, the CBI filed a closure report in the three Bargari sacrilege cases in the special CBI court in Mohali.
Three Dera followers Mohinder Pal Bittu (who was recently murdered in Nabha jail), Sukhjinder Singh and Shakti Singh were accused in the cases.
In October 2015, the then SAD-BJP government in the state decided to hand over three cases of sacrilege in Bargari to the CBI.
( With inputs from IANS )