Chandigarh: It is learned that Anshul Chhatarpati son of murdered journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati here on Friday, has claimed that the then Congress MP from Patiala Parneet Kaur along with Punjab Congress leader Harminder Singh Jassi; and BIS Chahal, the then media adviser to the Punjab CM; had tried to put pressure on the CBI in favour of the Sirsa Dera head in 2005 pertaining to his father’s murder case.
Ram Chander Chhatrapati editor of local eveninger ‘Poora Sach’, had been shot at, allegedly by Dera Sauda Sirsa men, on October 24, 2002, for exposing rape of sadhvis by Gurmeet Ram Rahim. Chhatrapati succumbed to his injuries a month later, reads the quote from a report published in an English vernacular.
As reported by the media sources while addressing a press conference at the Chandigarh Press Club here on Friday, Anshul Chhatarpati alleged that when the CBI summoned the Dera head to New Delhi in 2005, then Congress MP Preneet Kaur camped in the national capital and tried to influence the investigating agency.
Furthermore, he alleged that when the CBI team arrived in Sirsa to question the Dera head, Chahal and Jassi tried to put pressure on it. Naming these three, Anshul Chhatarpati claimed that other leaders had also tried to exert pressure on the agency.
Interestingly, Preneet Kaur is the wife of Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Jassi a relative of the Dera head.
Additionally, he further alleged that the Haryana Police did not register his father’s statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. He alleged that the Haryana government at that time also did not lend any support to the family. Not even a single politician came forward in support of the two sadhvis, he maintained.
Subsequently, while criticizing the system he said that the INLD, Congress and BJP governments in Haryana all this while were looking for votes and they did not look for victims. A similar situation prevailed in Punjab with the SAD and Congress. “Es hamam mein sabhi nange hain,” he adds, notes The Tribune (TT).