Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Samrala (Ludhiana)/Chandigarh, Lambasting the Deputy Chief Minister and the Home Minister Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal for converting Punjab Police into private militia of the Akali Dal, the Punjab Congress President, Mr Partap Singh Bajwa, today demanded a time bound probe by a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court into the cold blooded killing of two dalit brothers of Jamalpur in Ludhiana district. He said alternatively, the inquiry should be handed over to the CBI.
In a statement issued here today after expressing sympathy with the bereaved family in the village, Mr Bajwa alleged the dalits have been under attack under this regime and as such, this was not a case in isolation. He said the case should be handed over to the fast track court after investigation and the culprits should be given exemplary punishment. The Punjab police at one time was associated with exemplary bravery and valour but now it was a jungle raj in the state as this once proud force was being dictated by the Akali jathedars.
Rejecting the suspension of the Khanna SSP, he said this was no punishment as it was “Sukhbir Singh Badal who should be suspended”. He asserted that under the Badal government, suspension had rather become a qualification for the police officials to prove their loyalty and then get prized postings after re-instatement. The situation had become so alarming that the state police was functioning as the private army of the Akali Dal-BJP leaders and being misused the way dictators like Saddam Hussein had done.
The PPCC chief alleged the Akali Dal-BJP-Punjab Police nexus was functioning like a mafia controlling sand mining, drug smuggling and taking over properties, especially of the NRIs, forcibly.
Challenging the police version of killing of the two brothers in the so called encounter, he asserted the home guards were not allotted AK-47, the weapon that had been used in this crime. He said the police had been used by the local Akali leader as part of the vendetta politics.
He said the Sikh religion advocated the protection of poor and the weak and as such, such killings were even against the basic tenets of Sikhism while the Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal claimed himself to be a Panthic leader having been bestowed the honour of “Fakhar-e-Qaum”.
He also demanded all-encompassing probe into the assets of all station house officers after the Badal government took over in 2007 with the details being put online.
