LUDHIANA, July 25: Sensing the brewing anger among a particular community following the murder of pastor Sultan Masih, leaders of all major political parties in Punjab made a beeline at the memorial service of the pastor on Monday. Political leaders included education minister Aruna Chaudhary of the Congress, former cabinet minister from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Bikram Majithia and Punjab co-president of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Aman Arora besides local MLAs.
The memorial service was held at the grain market near Jalandhar bypass on Monday.
While AAP and SAD leaders condemned the killing and attacked the government, education minister Arun Chaudhary assured that police are working actively in the case and will soon nab the killers.
Several people from the community from across the state took part in the memorial service amid tight police security. Special CCTV cameras were installed to keep a check on people’s activities.
Addressing the media, AAP co-president Aman Arora blamed chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh for allegedly failing to provide a safe environment to people and condemned the murder of the pastor.
Recalling Masih as a renowned religious and social personality, he mentioned that he served the downtrodden with full commitment. He also said law and order situation in Punjab had totally collapsed and the state government has failed to ensure a sense of security among the people.
He said the chief minister who also holds the home portfolio has no time to concentrate on the law and order. He demanded that CM should appoint an able leader exclusively as a home minister who could pay full attention towards the task.
Arora said it was very unfortunate that during the recent past, many prominent personalities from different sections of the society had lost their precious lives at the hands of such anti-social elements and no culprit could be arrested. He demanded that the culprits should be arrested at the earliest and a memorial of pastor should be built in Ludhiana.
Meanwhile, SAD leaders too dubbed the inability of police to nab killers as the big failure of the Congress government. However, when SAD leader Majithia was asked about the similar killings and unsolved cases in the SAD government, he maintained that the Akali government could not be held responsible for it.
Meanwhile, Aruna Chaudhary assured the family that the police would nab the killers soon.
News Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
