With Navjot Sidhu heading the Congress party in the stateand his commitment to bring justice in desecration cases have started bearingfruits with Punjab government providing prosecution sanctions in cases ofsacrilege involving crimes under sections 295A and 153A of the Indian PenalCode (IPC).
Punjab additional chief secretary (home affairs andjustice) Anurag Aggarwal on Friday provided the prosecution sanction underSection 196 of CrPC in two cases. The first case is pertaining to pasting ofderogatory posters at Bargari in Faridkot on September 25, 2015, and the secondcase is regarding torn pages of a Bir of Guru Granth Sahib being scattered atBargari on October 12, 2015.
The sanction has been provided against four accusedincluding Sukhjinder Singh, Shakti Singh, Baljit Singh and Ranjit Singh in thefirst case, and against six accused including Sukhjinder Singh, Shakti Singh,Baljit Singh, Ranjit Singh, Nishan Singh and Pardeep Singh in the second case.
Notably, prosecution sanction is necessary for casesinvolving IPC sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outragereligious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs)and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion,race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial tomaintenance of harmony).
“As the special investigation team (SIT) has filedchallans in both the cases, it needed the prosecution sanction to move ahead.The sanction has been provided now,” said SIT head IG SPS Parmar.
Sukhjinder Singh, Shakti Singh, Ranjit Singh and BaljitSingh have got bail in both cases, while bail applications of Nishan Singh andPardeep Singh is expected to be taken up on August 3 by a Faridkot court.
(By Dinesh Sharma)