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Chandigarh, September 9: Expressing his serious concern and anxiety over increasing insecurity of the common person as evident from almost daily reports of killings and rape, People’s Party of Punjab Chief Manpreet Singh Badal said the state had turned into jungle raj for which it was Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal who was responsible in his capacity as the Home Minister.
“The latest case is the killing of a person yesterday at Garhshankar who was beaten to death publicly. There is also a highly disturbing report of an assistant sub-inspector of police station Longowal slapping a girl from a poor family and asking for bribe in a dowry harassment case. There have been increasing reports of rapes, including gang rapes. In several cases of lawlessness, it is the Akali activists who are involved”, he pointed out.
He said the gravity of situation in the state could also be assessed from the clash between the Akali and BJP Councillors in Batala with the BJP threatening a bandh in the city in case the Akali culprits were not booked. As per the reports, it was a former Akali MLA who led the attack against the BJP leaders.
He said Punjab had become the Wild West mainly because of the politicisation of the police and the system of making the police subservient to the local Akali leaders rather than maintaining the chain of command in the force. The system had been totally wrecked as police stations had become sources of money for the local Akali leaders.
He pointed out that Sukhbir had launched the system of night patrolling with much fanfare but this ended up as a photo-op and publicity stunt as no police personnel is visible on the highways at night. He recalled some scheme was launched for the rural areas too but that had also remained non-functional.
