Amarinder vows to ensure fair probe in 2015 desecration case

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Friday vowed to ensure "a free and fair" probe into the 2015 incidents of desecration of Sikh religious texts and firings on protesters in Faridkot.

"The SIT set up to probe the matter would be given a free hand to take its investigation to the logical conclusion as expeditiously as possible," he said here.

Nobody found responsible would be spared, he said.

Singh also hailed the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict in the 2015 Bargari case.

The verdict, he said, is "a victory for the families of innocent victims of the brutal killings which was deliberately not investigated during the previous SAD-BJP regime".

The court Friday dismissed pleas by policemen, booked in the firing case, and refused to order a CBI probe into the desecration incidents, while reposing faith in the SIT probe into the desecration and firing cases.

The court has directed the SIT to complete its probe and present the chargesheet, which would be done, said the chief minister.

On the upcoming Kartarpur Corridor, Singh said the corridor should be opened to devotees of all religions so that no follower of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev is deprived of the opportunity to pay obeisance at the historic shrine in Pakistan.

He dismissed as "irrelevant" the new political parties mushrooming in Punjab.

These new outfits coming up before the parliamentary polls are not to be taken seriously, he said, ruling out any threat from these "fly-by-night parties".

Expelled AAP legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira has floated Punjab Ekta Party while Shiromani Akali Dal rebels has set up SAD (Taksali) recently.

Meanwhil, Singh laid the foundation stones of developmental projects worth Rs 29 crore, to be executed by Patiala Development Authority (PDA), an official release said.