Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday flayed his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar for blaming Punjab for the violence that followed the indictment of the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) chief.

CM Khattar had claimed that there was “a big conspiracy” to let DSS chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim escape from Panchkula court soon after his conviction for rape but the security forces foiled the plan.

He said that Ram Rahim had Z+ security which included five from Haryana police and eight policemen from Punjab Police. Haryana CM said Punjab Police personnel could have been part of the plot to let Ram Rahim escape.

Dubbing Khattar’s above charges against the Punjab government as ludicrous, Captain Amarinder said the Haryana CM was trying desperately to cover up his own government’s failure in preventing the carnage in the wake of the verdict against Dera chief.

“Khattar’s despair was evident from the fact that even after suspending five of their own (Haryana) police personnel over the alleged conspiracy to whisk Ram Rahim away post the judgement, he was now trying to fix responsibility for the entire affair on Punjab police,” said the CM said.

Amarinder also lashed out at Khattar for blaming Punjab over the accumulation of over one lakh Dera followers in Panchkula ahead of the judicial verdict in the rape case against Ram Rahim.

The death count, and the number of people injured in the violence that erupted in Panchkula after the verdict, clearly shows that the bulk of the followers gathered there were from Haryana, he said, asking how could the Punjab government have been expected to controlled entry into Haryana.

Khattar seems to have either forgotten or has conveniently chosen to ignore the fact that not only did Punjab witness only a few sporadic and minor incidents but reported no loss of life in the fallout of the Panchkula bloodshed, said Capt Amarinder.  If the majority of the followers gathered in the town had been from Punjab the situation in this state would have been much worse, he added.

Amarinder said Khattar should to refrain from playing dirty politics over the issue which had led to huge loss of life and property.