Anti-sacrilege law diversionary tactic to hide failure: Cong

Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Sunday termed the AAP government’s decision to table an anti-sacrilege law in the upcoming special Assembly session a bid to “distract” people from its failure to act against those behind incidents involving desecration of religious texts.

“What prevented the government from taking any action till now? Does the government want to suggest that there was no law in the state and the country against the sacrilege?” he asked apparently referring to the 2015 incidents.

The decision to table the law during the two-day session scheduled for July 10 and 11 was taken on Saturday.

The desecration of religious texts had become a major issue in the 2017 Assembly elections.

The later part of the SAD regime, which ruled in alliance with the BJP in the state, was marked by several sacrilege incidents and subsequent police firing on protesters that had resulted in the death of two persons in 2015.

Warring said till now, the government had been struck with complete inertia.

“It neither had any intent nor capability to do justice in the sacrilege cases and when it realised that public anger was growing, it started resorting to its characteristic ways of diversion and distraction,” he alleged.

Warring said suspended AAP legislator Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh had carried out a detailed probe into the issue when he served the state as an IPS officer at the time of the 2015 incidents.

“You took votes in the name of sacrilege and you did nothing,” he alleged.

Punjab