Probe Moonak breach, CBI told

Chandigarh : More than a year after the Prakash Singh committee noted that the Moonak canal breach case “points to a grave internal security threat to India’s critical national infrastructure”, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today quoted the report while ordering a CBI probe. The direction came even as Haryana attempted to undermine Prakash Singh’s authority by refusing to allow the former DGP to head a special investigation team (SIT) being constituted to probe the Jat stir violence in February last year. The Moonak canal was breached during the stir, affecting water supply to Delhi.
In all, four FIRs were registered (on February 21, Kharkhoda police station; February 22, Kundli police station; February 23, Ganaur police station and February 24, Kharkhoda). Investigations in all four stand transferred to the premier investigation agency, which has been told to submit a report by July 13.  Trials in these four cases have, meanwhile, been stayed. The Bench of Justices SS Saron and Darshan Singh observed that 3,000-4,000 persons were stated to be involved in arson and breach of the canal. Yet, police reports/challans were filed against only four or five, that too without arrests. Challans were filed in two cases, and untraced reports prepared in two.
The Bench took note of CBI’s apparent reluctance to probe the matter for want of manpower, but refused to accept its contention.
Referring to the CBI probe in cases related to the attack on the Haryana Finance Minister’s house, the Bench said: “Why are you running away? You are already seized of five cases. You took them without objection. That’s also mob violence… Can’t let things go out of hand… Can’t allow water supply to the national capital be affected.”
The Bench said it was disheartening that the police had done nothing even after it  asked the CBI counsel to seek instructions a month-and-a-half ago. The assertion came as Haryana Additional Advocate-General Pawan Girdhar suggested that the SIT, in the process of being set up, could look into the Moonak case too. Opposing the suggestion, amicus curiae Anupam Gupta argued: “If a group of agitators could stop an important source of water supply to the national capital, what a determined group of terrorists could do is rather discomforting.”