Sukhpal Khaira calls arrest badle ki rajneeti, Congress says party standing beside him like a rock

On Thursday, the police sought seven days of remand of Khaira, but the court granted only two days of remand asking the police to produce the arrested leader in court on September 30 again. While seeking Khaira’s remand, the police told the court that they wanted to obtain SIM card and passport details of Khaira.

Khaita’s counsels, Nitin Midha and Sanjeev Kapoor, in turn, moved an application before the court stating that the police investigation/questioning in the case be carried out only in the presence of his lawyers, which the court allowed. The Congress leader’s lawyers also produced before the court on Thursday an old video of Bhagwant Mann in which the Punjab CM can be seen stating before the Parliament that the case under which Khaira was arrested on Thursday was ‘fake’. Mann was the Sangrur MP at that time and Khaira a member of the AAP.

According to details, Khaira’s name was added in the FIR on the basis of a inquiry report of a four-member special investigation team which is being headed by Swapan Sharma, the SSP of Fazilka when the FIR was lodged in 2015.

After his arrest on Thursday, Khaira was first taken for a medical examination to Jalalabad Civil Hospital, before being and later was produced in court. Before being produced in court, he interacted with the media in the presence of cops and said,”This is badle ki rajneeti and not badlaav ki rajneeti by Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann. They can do anything to me inside the jail. They can even physically eliminate me as gangsters are sitting in jails who anyway openly take credit for crime happening in the outside world.”

He added,”This is the fourth case against me filed by the Bhagwant Mann government. They have even implicated my sister. On Thursday morning, they picked me up from my house without even informing the Chandigarh Police and without even producing an arrest warrant.

They have nominated me in an eight-year-old NDPS case. I have previously been granted bail from the high court in this case and the Supreme Court too has quashed the summoning orders in this case.” He added,”I will fight till the last.”

Khaira added that in Delhi, Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal were approaching the Congress high command over INDIA alliance, while in Punjab, Mann was trying to marginalise the Congress. “It seems that Mann is unable to tolerate the opposition,” he said, before being whisked away by the police.

Earlier in the day, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, had visited Khaira’s family in Chandigarh.

He later stated, “The whole of Congress is my family and we will stand like a rock with every one of our family members.” Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly, Partap Singh Bajwa, said,” Bhagwant Mann needs to understand that governments don’t remain for eternity.”

BJP’s national secretary Taun Chugh, meanwhile, while reacting to Khaira’s arrest, accused the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab of misusing its powers and working with a spirit of revenge. “Action should be taken if there is something wrong but it should not be borne out of the spirit of revenge,” he said.