Chandigarh, December 9: The police tonight booked SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and ex-minister Bikram Singh Majithia for allegedly causing inconvenience to the public by blocking the Harike bridge, hours after the party ended its statewide stir against the “false” attempt-to-murder case against Akali leaders at Mallanwala (Ferozepur) and the rejection of papers of Opposition candidates on “frivolous” grounds.
Sukhbir has been accused of blocking traffic with the Z-security bullet-proof jammer vehicle given to him by the government. The FIR was registered at Makhu police station in Ferozepur under Sections 431 (damage to roads and bridges), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 283 (causing danger or obstruction in public way) of the IPC and Section 8-B of the National Highways Act.
Earlier, the dharnas were lifted across the state in the evening after the police dropped the attempt-to-murder charge and arrested five Congress workers in connection with the December 6 Mallanwala violence, even as the state election commission had yesterday ordered the transfer of the Zira DSP and the Mallanwala SHO.
On Sukhbir’s call, SAD leaders and workers staged dharnas on several key roads, including Ludhiana-Jalandhar, Amritsar-Bathinda, Bathinda-Mansa and Amritsar-Jalandhar.
Since last evening, party leaders had been protesting over what they claimed are “excesses” by the Congress in the run-up to elections to three Municipal Corporations (Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala), and 32 nagar councils and nagar panchayats.
In Patiala, the constituency of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, the nomination papers of two Akali and as many BJP candidates were rejected. In Rajasansi, papers of four candidates were rejected.
“At places such as Talwandi Sabo, Shahkot, Shutrana, and Ghagga, the police are threatening our candidates to withdraw their papers. We apprised the state election commission of this today as well, but to no avail,” SAD senior vice-president Daljit Singh Cheema told The Tribune.
He added that yesterday, the EC had allowed another day to file nominations in Mallanwala, but 90 Congress men queued up before SAD candidates, preventing them from filing their papers.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
