Murderous attack on AAP leader; Captain govt served 24-hour ultimatum to arrest culprits.
Chandigarh, March 15- Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Punjab Vidhan Sabha has expressed shock over the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
In a statement to press, Cheema said that the Congress-led government in the state was solely responsible for the sorry state of affairs the security apparatus. He said Captain, who also holds the portfolio of Home Affairs, had failed in containing crime in the state. He said goons were on the loose and there was complete lawlessness and that girls were scared of stir out of their homes.
He further said that the murderous attack on the Patiala (Rural) president Chetan Singh Jouremajra, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital, by certain armed miscreants was enough to prove the point, he said while addressing media persons after visiting the recuperating the injured leader.
Those who accompanied Cheema included party’s Amritsar Lok Sabha candidate, Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal, Amritsar (Urban) president, Ashok Talwar, Women state wing co-president, Jeevan Jot Kaur, Jasvir Singh Sursinghwala and other local leaders of the party.
It may be recalled that Jouremajra was attacked by some armed youth on Thursday in the bustling Patti bazaar while saving a girl from being kidnapped by the miscreants. The miscreants shot at him from a close range, leaving him grievously injured. The victim later told the police that had the person (Chetan Singh) not appeared on the scene, the goons would have succeeded in their mission to kidnap her.
Cheema accused the police dispensation as to why criminals were allowed to walk free with arms and ammunition even as the Model Code of Conduct was already in force. This, Cheema said, reflected the government’s laidback attitude to discipline the criminals out on the loose.
Serving a 48-hour ultimatum on police dispensation, Cheema said that if the culprits were not arrested within the stipulated period, AAP would be free to take the dispensation to task for its delaying tactics and shoddy probe.
He accused the state government of conniving with the who’s who of the erstwhile SAD-BJP government via the police dispensation offering cover to SAD MLA Valtoha. The Badal-Captain bonhomie, he said, had augured well for land mafia, liquor mafia, drug mafia and so on and so forth.
He said that CM Captain Amarinder Singh, who also holds Home portfolio, owes an explanation on the deteriorating law and order situation and drug mafia calling the shots in the state under the patronage of the government. He lamented that what could be expected from Captain who had taken a solemn vow in the presence of ‘Sri Gutka Sahib’ to stamp out the menace of drugs within four weeks of assuming power?