Early morning on September 28, Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira was arrested by Fazilka Police from his Chandigarh residence. This arrest was made on the basis of a report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to investigate a 2015 case relating to him. Khaira was produced in the subdivisional judicial magistrate’s court in the Jalalabad constituency of Fazilka district on Thursday. Though police had sought 7 days police remand but court only gave them 2 days. He will be produced in court today. Currently, Khaira is lodged at the Fazilka police headquarters. Clapping back at his arrest, he has termed it as badle ki rajneeti. Who is Sukhpal Khaira? Why was he arrested? What are the other cases against him? We explain. A long and winding case against Khaira The case was lodged on March 9, 2015, by the Fazilka Police after the seizure of 2 kg heroin, 24 gold biscuits, one country made pistol, one .315 bore pistol, and two Pakistani SIM cards from the possession of a certain Gurdev Singh and his associates. A total of nine persons, including Gurdev Singh, were eventually arrested in this case. Gurdev was then the chairman of Dhilwan market committee in Bholath constituency from which Khaira contests elections. He is known to be a close aide of Khaira. Officials said that during the investigation, Khaira's name had cropped up and they came to know the Congress leader had spoken with Gurdev Singh 65 times between February 27, 2015, to March 8, 2015, a day before the case was lodged, from the mobile phones of his private secretary and personal security officer. Singh and eight others were convicted on October 31, 2017, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Sukhpal Khaira was summoned by the trial court in Fazilka in the same case in November 2017, as an additional accused. While his arrest orders were stayed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, it allowed the investigation to proceed. In November 2021, Khaira was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to an alleged drug and fake passport racket. The Fazilka drug seizure was once again a part of the investigation in this case. Khaira remained in prison for 80 days and was granted bail ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls in 2022. He contested from Bholath as a Congress candidate and won yet again. In February 2023, however, the Supreme Court quashed the summon orders of the Fazilka court against Sukhpal Khaira saying the summons couldn’t be issued as the trial court had already concluded the case. But, in April 2023 a fresh SIT was formed to investigate this case, under Swapan Sharma, DIG Jalandhar range. Sharma was SSP Fazilka when the original FIR had been lodged in March 2015. Khaira was arrested on Thursday based on the report of this SIT. Khaira also has other cases against him Previously in September 2022, a case of forgery and under the IT Act was lodged against Khaira and PPCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring for circulating a false list of chairmen and boards of corporations appointed by the AAP government. On April 27, a case was registered at Bholath police station under sections 186( obstructing a public servant in discharge of duties), 189 (threat of injury to public servant), 342 (wrongful confinement), 500 (punishment for defamation), and 506 (criminal intimidation). A day later, non-bailable offence under section 353 (assault to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) was added. However, on May 12, he was granted bail in this case. This case was lodged on the complaint of SDM Kapurthala Sanjeev Kumar who had written twice to the chief secretary about the Khaira’s unruly behaviour during his visit to the SDM office. Khaira’s political career Khaira started his political journey as a Panchayat member of his native village Rampur in Kapurthala. A graduate from Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, Khaira’s father Sukhjinder Singh Khaira was an Akali stalwart and served as Punjab’s education minister. Khaira, however, joined the Congress and became the Punjab Youth Congress vice president in 1997. He is a 3 time MLA from Bholath constituency in the Kapurthala district, starting from. After two failures in 1997 and 2002, he first became an MLA in 2007, when Congress was the Opposition Party in Punjab. But in 2012, he lost to Bibi Jagir Kaur. He was the spokesperson of Congress in the 2012 elections and resigned after this loss. In 2015, Khaira joined AAP and was elected as MLA again in 2017. He was appointed as leader of opposition. However, in July 2018, he was removed from his post by Arvind Kejriwal, the national convenor of AAP, through a social media post. Thus, in 2019, he resigned as Bholath MLA to contest Lok Sabha elections from Bathinda parliamentary constituency against SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Congress’s Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, and AAP’s Baljinder Kaur by floating his own party — Punjab Ekta Party. However, the party couldn’t win even a single seat and Khaira himself finished 4th in Bathinda Lok Sabha polls. In June 2021 he joined Congress yet again and subsequently won as Congress MLA from Bholath constituency in 2022, despite AAP riding a strong wave across Punjab. Political reactions after his arrest Congress has expressed its displeasure over Khaira’s arrest, calling it a case of political vendetta. After the arrest, the Punjab Congress put up a show of strength in Fazilka, gathering en masse on Friday morning, including PPCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and LoP Partap Singh Bajwa, to express solidarity with Khaira. Punjab Youth Congress president Mohit Mohindra staged a massive protest in Ludhiana on Thursday. Moreover, even the Shiromani Akali Dal has condemned this arrest calling it political vendetta. On the other hand, AAP spokesperson Malwinder Singh Kang stated that after the SIT report, there was enough evidence to arrest Khaira in the NDPS case lodged in 2015. Interestingly when Khaira was summoned in November 2017 (at the time he was with AAP), AAP MLAs Aman Arora, Harpal Singh Cheema, Baljinder Kaur and others had condemned the case against him, calling it fake. In fact, current Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, then Sangrur MP, had spoken in support of Khaira in the Parliament.
