Punjab CM constitutes new SIT to probe Bikram Majithia in drugs case

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has ordered the constitution SIT to probe Akali Dal (SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a drugs case.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday ordered the constitution of a new Special Investigation team (SIT) to probe Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a drugs case.The reconstituted SIT will be headed by AIG Gursharan Singh Sandhu.

Majithia, 46, was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on December 20 last year basis of a 2018 report of a probe into a drug racket in Punjab. The Punjab Police's Crime Branch had filed a 49-page FIR related to the case at a Mohali police station last year.

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After the Supreme Court restrained the Punjab Police from arresting Majithia till February 23 so he could campaign ahead of assembly elections in the state, he moved a bail petition in the Mohali sessions court. But his plea was rejected.

The former Punjab minister was sent to judicial custody for two weeks on February 24 after he surrendered before the court in connection with the case.

The SAD has termed the case against Majithia as “political vendetta”, saying that three DGPs and three Directors of Bureau of Investigation were changed. The party also alleged that police officers were allegedly coerced to falsely implicate Majithia.

Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, contested the February 20 Punjab polls from the Amritsar East constituency, but was defeated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate.