Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga on Wednesday said that he will continue to question Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal about his promise to take action on the pending sacrilege cases in Punjab, PTI reported.
“I will continue to ask Kejriwal questions whether one or 1,000 cases are registered against me,” Bagga told PTI, days after he was arrested by the Punjab Police on May 6 for allegedly making provocative statements against Kejriwal. He was later released and given protection from arrest till July 6 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Ahead of the Assembly elections in Punjab held in February-March, the Aam Aadmi Party had promised action in the 2015 sacrilege case, related to the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy text of the Sikhs, in the state’s Bargari town. The Aam Aadmi Party won the elections and Bhagwant Mann took over as the chief minister
On Wednesday, Bagga claimed that he had been arrested as he questioned Kejriwal’s inaction against those accused in the sacrilege case, drug traffickers and Khalistani separatists. The Khalistan movement is a separatist campaign to create a country for Sikhs by seceding from India.
Bagga’s claim is, however, incorrect as the Punjab Police had arrested him on a complaint filed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Sunny Singh Ahluwalia, who had alleged that Bagga threatened Kejriwal during a protest outside the chief minister’s home on March 30. Bagga had allegedly told television channels that “he would not let Kejriwal live”.
Bagga’s arrest saw a three-way tussle on his custody between the Delhi, Haryana and Punjab police forces, followed by a midnight hearing at a judge’s residence on May 7.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday ordered that no coercive action be taken against Bagga till July 6. The High Court has also restricted the police’s power to interrogate Bagga.
The court ordered that Bagga should not be arrested, and a chargesheet should not be filed till the next day of the hearing. The interrogation can only be carried out twice, for a maximum of one hour at once, between 10 am and 5 pm and in the presence of Bagga’s counsel.
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