The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday alleged the Congress government in the state has hatched a criminal conspiracy to implicate SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal in a false sacrilege case.

The SAD said demanded the entire investigation into the sacrilege case be monitored by a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court. Senior SAD leaders Maheshinder Singh Grewal along with Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra and Dr Daljit Cheema said Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and home minister Sukhjinder Randhawa were responsible for hatching this conspiracy by holding a secret meeting in the Raj Bhawan annexe on 22 October.

He said the meeting was attended by Director General of Police (DGP) IPS Sahota, home secretary Anurag Verma, then Advocate General APS Deol, Special Investigation Team chairman SPS Parmar, assistant inspector general (AIG) of police, RS Sohal, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Mukhwinder Bhullar, deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Lakhbir Singh, and inspector Dalbir Singh, retired police officers – RS Khattra and Sulakhan Singh and legislators Kushaldeep Dhillon and Kulbir Zira.

Grewal said the purpose of the meeting was to neutralize the anti-incumbency being faced by the Congress government by diverting the attention of the people by fixing the political Opposition, especially the Badal family by implicating it in false cases.

He said former inspector general (IG) Khattra had been entrusted with the responsibility of creating deposition through false witnesses against the Badal family.

He said Khattra had agreed to do this after home minister Randhawa brokered the deal between the retired police officer, who was very close to him, and the chief minister. “Khattra has been promised a Constitutional post and his son has been promised a Congress ticket from Patiala or Malwa region,” Grewal said.

He said as part of this deal Khattra had prepared a Congress worker, Rajinder Kaur Meemsa, to get a false case filed against the SAD president. “The conspiracy is that Rajinder will hold a Press conference and ring up the DGP to ask why her complaint is not being registered. The cooked up complaint is that the Congress worker, who had temporarily even joined the SAD, had visited Badal’s residence in Badal before the 2017 elections where she had witnessed the SAD president in the company of three Dera Sacha Sauda workers”.

He said subsequently Rajinder claimed she had seen the same leaders in Badal’s residence after the 2017 elections and had heard Badal telling that “the new government is ours and I will not let anything wrong happen to you”.