Senior Akali leader Sukhbir Singh Badal, on Monday, recommended a President’s Police Medal for Assistant Sub Inspectors of the Punjab Police, Jasbir Singh and Hira Singh for their “act of exceptional and exemplary courage and selfless devotion to duty ” on the precincts of Shri Harmandar Sahib, Amritsar, on December 4 when an assassination attempt was made on his life.

In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, copies of which have been forwarded to the concerned government officials including the DGP, Punjab, Badal said: “It was only because of the blessings of the great Guru Sahiban and grace of the Almighty that ASI Jasbir Singh and ASI Hira Singh happened to be present there that day.” “It was remarkable how Jasbr Singh and Hira Singh displayed rare and noble courage and commitment to his duty and risked his life to safeguard the sanctity of Sikhism’s most sacred shrine, Shri Harmandar Sahib, and to save my life,” he said.

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Badal further said: “The prevention of the tragic sequence of events was nothing short of providential, especially as those bent upon vitiating the sanctity of the place and the atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in Punjab seemed to enjoy brazen patronage of the high and mighty in the state.” Meanwhile, SAD Member of Parliament and former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, also wrote to Amit Shah, demanding a high-level judicial probe into the shocking incident. In addition to recommending that Jasbir Singh and Hira Singh’s extraordinary act of bravery on duty be acknowledged at the national level through an award of the President’s Medal, she came down heavily on the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his government in Punjab for “issuing provocative justifications for acts amounting to killings of political rivals.”

She pointed out that minutes before the assassination attempt on Mr Badal’s life, senior officers of the Punjab Police, including a superintendent, (SP) were busy chatting up a few controversial figures who have a criminal track record so high profile that almost every Station Head Officer in the state knew these criminals’ identity. Prominent among these controversial figures was Narain Singh Chaura. “

She said that “these controversial figures were then allowed to move freely and were literally guided to their intended “victim”. Unbelievably, there were no security officials in plain clothes around Mr Badal at the prefixed hour to assist him, allowing the assassin an absolutely unhindered access to their target.”

She further said that it was clear that the assassination attempt was neither a stray incident nor was it an individual act by “a lone wolf”. “It was a clearly sponsored, pre-planned, premeditated act and a part of a deep rooted conspiracy to weaken and eliminate Sikh leadership. This was aimed at rendering the brave and patriotic Sikh quom totally leaderless and in a state of utter confusion and fratricidal war,” she said.