Punjab: Congress MLA Sukhpal Khaira Booked Again After HC Grants Him Bail In 2015 Drugs Case

Chandigarh: Within hours after Congress legislator Sukhpal Khaira was granted bail in the 2015 drugs case by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he was booked in a fresh case of intimidating a witness in the case, on Thursday.

In the fresh case, in the FIR registered on December 18, 2023, the complainant, Ranjit Kaur, held that some unknown persons had threatened her to ask her husband to withdraw his statement in the drug case in which her husband Kashmir Singh had deposed against Khaira. She held that these persons had come to her home and threatened to eliminate her family if her husband would not withdraw his application in the case.

Court directed police to register FIR

According to media reports, she had moved the local court after the police was yet to register an FIR and the court had directed the Kapurthala police to register an FIR in the case.

It may be recalled that Khaira was arrested on September 28, 2023, by the state police in connection with a 2015 drugs case from his sector 5 house in Chandigarh. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and leader of opposition Partap Singh Bajwa had condemned the arrest accusing the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of indulging in political vendetta. They questioned what kind of police probe was it, in which Khaira was arrested after eight years and held that it showed that ``jungle raj’’ was prevailing in the state.

The 9-year-old drug case

For the record, the said drug case was registered in March 2015 in Jalalabad in which nine persons had been convicted under NDPS Act; the police had recovered 2 kg heroin, 24 gold biscuits, one .315 bore pistol, one country-made pistol and two Pakistani SIM cards from them.

Khaira’s name had cropped up in the police probe though the apex court had stayed the trial court proceedings against Khaira in 2017 who was summoned as an additional accused in the matter. Khaira was arrested by the enforcement directorate (ED) in 2021 on the charges of money laundering linked with the 2015 drug case and he was granted bail in 2022.