Gurmeet Ram Rahim, aides being framed in Guru Granth Sahib theft case: Premis

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 13

Days after their head Gurmeet Ram Rahim was booked by the Punjab Police in the 2015 case of theft of Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in Faridkot, representatives of the Dera Sacha Sauda today accused the Congress government of framing the dera.

The dera men, led by Harcharan Singh and Vivek Kumar, claimed that the dera head and other followers were being falsely booked in the case without any evidence against them.

“This is being done because the dera had supported the Akali-BJP alliance in the 2017 Assembly elections. Besides, an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the sacrilege cases is still on,” said Harcharan Singh, while addressing mediapersons here today.

The dera representatives alleged there were many loopholes in the theory that was being propagated by the Punjab Police.

“The entire theory is based on the confessional statement of Mahinder Pal Bittu, who was booked in a case of arson. The fact is that he was brutally tortured and faced with threat of harm to his family, so he signed the statement made by the police. Just before he was to be granted bail, he was killed in the high-security jail,” Kumar said .