Punjab election: In Maur, where blast took place before 2017 contest, new polls revive old pain

MAUR

(BATHINDA): For the residents of Bathinda district's laid back Maur town, the February 20

assembly elections

in the state are a reminder of the deafening January 2017

blast

which took place just four days ahead of the last assembly elections and resulted in the death of seven people, including five children.

The blast on January 31, 2017, took place in the evening, just after Congress candidate Harminder Singh Jassi had concluded a public meeting on the Truck Union Road of the town. An abandoned Maruti 800 car was used for the blast. "Elections have become a cruel joke for bereaved families. Apart from losing their dear ones, the families have been waiting for justice. Not even a single person has been

arrested

in what can only be called one of the biggest terrorist attacks in Punjab after years," said Khushdeep Singh, whose son Japsimran Singh was among those killed.

Japsimran (15), Sourav Singla (14), Ankush (11) and Ripandeep Singh (9) lived on the same street. They were just yards away from their homes when they were killed in the blast.

The other fatalities included Barkha (12), her father Ashok Kumar (40) and Jassi's office manager Harpal Singh Pali (41). Such was the intensity of the blast that the hatchback car in which it was placed rose a few meters above the ground and then fell back on the group enveloped in fire.

A member of the committee formed by locals to seek justice in the blast case, Naveen Singla, said the town could never return to normalcy after the tragedy. "We have lost interest in elections. Whosoever wins or loses, the fate of bereaved families is not going to change. Even more painful is that justice has not been delivered," said Singla, who is a member of the Bomb Kand Virodhi Action Committee.

The committee, along with families and town residents, remembers the departed souls every year on January 31.

Maur resident Karnail Singh, who did not lose anyone in the blast but still felt concerned over how the probe into the blast shaped up, said the government's handling of the sensitive issue, and pointing the suspicion at a dera without any justice, had just torn apart people. "This clearly points to political parties being more concerned about their vote banks than doing enough to deliver justice," said Karnail.

Four persons - Hapreet Singh, Sunil Kumar, Krishan Kumar and Harmel Singh - had on February 8, 2018, recorded their statements in a court at Talwandi Sabo as witnesses in the case. Three persons - Gurtej Singh alias Kala of Alikan village in Sirsa (Haryana), Amrik Singh alias Shankar of Badalgarh village in Sangrur and Avtar Singh of Bhainsi Majra village in Kurukshetra (Haryana) - were named in the case and declared proclaimed offenders (POs) in October 2018. "When it came to further investigations, a petition was filed by the aggrieved families, but it was quashed when the SIT had claimed that investigations had been completed and challan had been presented in court.

" A contempt of court case against DGP was filed for not taking action as directed by court, but it was withdrawn. When another petition was filed, the court had ordered to change the special investigation team (SIT). Now, a review petition in the case is pending in Punjab and Haryana high court and the next hearing has been fixed for February 4, 2022," said the families' counsel, Mohinder Singh Joshi. The families want the case to be handed over either to Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) or National Investigations Agency (NIA).



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