CHANDIGARH, November 23: Former Chief Minister and the Permanent Invitee to the Congress Working Committee Capt Amarinder Singh today rubbished the claims of the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal that he was interfering into the investigation by seeking a judicial probe. “Why is Mr Badal running away from a judicial probe?” he asked, while maintaining that for credible and transparent investigation a judicial probe by a sitting High Court judge is must.
Reacting to Mr Badal’s charges, Capt Amarinder said, while he had all the praise and appreciation for the Senior Superintendent of Police Patiala Mr Hardial Mann and his team for busting the drug racket and had full confidence in his integrity and ability, he did not trust the state government particularly the Akalis with the probe.
He said, irrespective of what the police will find out in the probe, the Akali government will ensure to filter it so that the names of all those Akali leaders found involved in the drug smuggling are removed.
Reiterating his demand for a judicial probe by a sitting High Court judge, he said, this had become more important as the name of an Akali MLA had figured in the racket. “This is not an allegation made by us but the revelations made by a senior Akali leader about his own party MLA and MP”, the former Chief Minister pointed out, while asking, “can anybody expect Mr Badal to be impartial in such matters?”
Capt Amarinder criticised Mr Badal for trying to politicise a serious issue that concerns the future generations of Punjab. He said, given the seriousness and the enormity of the issue it would be in everybody’s interest to have an independent judicial probe. “Otherwise nobody is going to accept your investigation and rightly so because that is not going to be fair”, he told Mr Badal while adding, there are so many examples where witnesses were made to resile under duress to help those in power under Mr Badal’s regime.