Punjab: SAD Chief Sukhbir Badal Apologizes For Mistakes, Including Favoring Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh And Appointing Sumedh Saini As DGP

Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Badal has accepted all 'mistakes’ – from favouring Dera Sacha Suda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to appointing Sumedh Saini as Punjab DGP - and tendered unconditional apology in his written "clarification’’ submitted to Akal Takht jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh, who had summoned him to respond to allegations by rebel SAD leaders.

Akal Takht, the supreme Sikh temporal seat, on Monday made Sukhbir Badal’s apology letter submitted to Akal Takht jathedar on July 24, last, public, in which the former tendered an unconditional apology for "all mistakes committed by the party and its government’’; the SAD-BJP coalition government was in power in Punjab from 2007 to 2017.

Now jathedar may call a meeting of ``Panj Singh Sahibans’’ (five Sikh high priests) to discuss the matter and take a decision.

Sukhbir had been summoned by the Akal Takht jathedar after the SAD rebel leaders including former MP Prem Singh Chandumajra, former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Jagir Kaur, former ministers Surjit Singh Rakhra and Parminder Singh Dhindsa, besides other leaders met the jathedar with an apology on July 1, citing four major mistakes. They also blamed Sukhbir – who was the deputy chief minister at that time – for the said mistakes and held that these also led to the party's political drubbing.

They held these mistakes were – revocation of the blasphemy case against Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim for imitating Guru Gobind Singh in 2007, failure to punish perpetrators of Bargari sacrilege and police officials for Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents, appointment of Sumedh Saini as DGP, giving Farzana Alam, wife of another controversial IPS officer Izhar Alam, the party ticket in 2012 assembly polls and failing to deliver justice to victims in fake encounter cases.

MANN ASSURES 'EXEMPLARY PUNISHMENT’

Meanwhile, a day after Sukhbir’s apology to Akal Takht, chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday said that those responsible for the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib would be given exemplary punishment.

Speaking at the "van mahotsav’’ function at Hoshiarpur, Mann said that ``mistakes could be forgiven, not sins’’. Reacting to Sukhbir’s apology, he held that the Akali leadership had already been held guilty in the court of people and it was time to punish them legally. He held that some startling facts had come to light in the inquiry into the sacrilege case.