Punjab court grants bail to Congress lawmaker Sukhpal Khaira in criminal intimidation case

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A Punjab court on Monday granted bail to Congress lawmaker Sukhpal Singh Khaira in a criminal intimidation case against a bail bond of Rs one lakh.

Kapurthala Judicial Magistrate (first class) Supreet Kaur granted the bail to the Bholath MLA and also asked him to furnish a bail bond of Rs one lakh, Khaira's counsel Kanwaljit Singh said, according to newswire PTI.

The Kapurthala Police had registered the case under sections 195A (threatening any person to give false evidence) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code against Khaira on the complaint of Ranjit Kaur.

The Congress lawmaker was arrested in this case on January 4 after he was granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in connection with a 2015 NDPS case.

Khaira was arrested in September in connection with the 2015 case, triggering accusations of political vendetta against the state's ruling AAP from the Congress.

He had been seeking bail after his alleged role in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act case surfaced during investigations by a special investigation team.

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The drugs case was registered in March 2015 at Jalalabad in Fazilka. Nine people, including Gurdev Singh, allegedly a close aide of Khaira, were booked in connection with the case and later convicted.

The police had seized two kg of heroin, 24 gold biscuits, a country-made pistol, a .315-bore pistol and two Pakistani SIM cards from them.

In her complaint, Kaur had alleged that two unidentified masked persons came to her home on a motorcycle on October 15 last year and threatened to kill her family if Singh did not withdraw his statement against Khaira.

On October 22 last year, she received an anonymous call and was threatened that her family would be eliminated, she alleged.

In the 2015 case, Khaira -- summoned as an additional accused -- had last year claimed that he was summoned despite the Supreme Court staying the trial court proceedings against him in 2017.

He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in 2021 on charges of money laundering linked to the 2015 case. He was granted bail in 2022.

Last February, the apex court quashed the summons against Khaira in the 2015 case. (With inputs from PTI)