Chandigarh, June 7 (IANS) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Tuesday said there was a grave threat to the life of former minister Bikram Singh Majithia and that there was every likelihood of him being implicated in another false case at the behest of AGDP Harpreet Sidhu who had been entrusted with the additional charge of prisons to settle political and personal scores.
Addressing a press conference here to highlight the letter written by Majithia's wife and Majitha legislator Ganieve Kaur Majithia to the DGP along with a copy to chief minister Bhagwant Mann, senior SAD leaders Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Daljit Singh Cheema demanded the immediate removal of Sidhu from the additional charge of the ADGP, Prisons, besides taking other necessary action in the case.
The leaders said there were grave apprehensions in the minds of the family of Majithia as well as that of the SAD that Sidhu had been posted as the ADGP Prisons with the motive of planting something on the former minister.
They said even though Sidhu was a most 'incompetent' police officer he was used by successive governments to settle scores with Majithia and that he had been posted as the ADGP, Prisons, with the same goal by the AAP government.
The SAD leaders said there was a severe animosity between the families of Majithia and Sidhu.
They said Sidhu was closely related to Majithia as the police officer's mother and the paternal aunt of Majithia were real sisters. "There has been bad blood between the families for generations with Sidhu's family blaming Majithia's family for the death of their aunt. This strained relationship and animosity was also withheld by Sidhu from the high court before he embarked upon conducting an inquiry on the alleged role of Majithia in a drug case."
Grewal and Cheema said when the high court did not proceed with the report of Sidhu, the latter maliciously handed over the report which was supposed to lie in a sealed envelope to Navjot Singh Sidhu, a politician who was inimical to Majithia.
The SAD leaders said towards the end of the term of the previous Congress government, Sidhu handed over his home cooked report to the DGP to register a false case under various sections of the NDPS Act against Majithia.
They said even after this, Sidhu kept interfering in the case and even wrote a letter to the AAP government on March 8 on which basis the SIT was reconstituted.
"Due to this Sidhu's dictat is treated as a command by the SIT which reports directly to him."
Notably, the police detained several people, including party workers, who were not allowing the SDMC to carry out the demolition drive at Shaheen Bagh. After the agitation was quelled, the bulldozer moved forward to demolish the illegal encroachment, an iron structure in front of a building. It is at this juncture that Khan reached the spot and was seen speaking to the officials.
Punjab shares a 553-km barbed-wire fenced international border with Pakistan which is under the vigil of nearly 135 BSF battalions. The drug network operates along the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India route.
Police are looking at this angle. The incident took place near Kengeri at 1 a.m. and the injured were shifted to nearby hospitals. According to the police, the bus had first hit the 4-feet tall road divider and then rammed into the Namma Metro Pillar number 545.
Chairing a meeting of the Special Task Force (STF) team led by its chief Harpreet Sidhu here, Mann said neither political persons nor officers would be spared if found conniving with the drug mafia. He told the police officers to work freely without any political pressure with a sharpened focus to make Punjab a drug-free state.
According to the SHO of Cantonment police station, Rajeev Singh, Ram Lakhan's wife informed the police that her husband had confessed to killing their son following a fight with her. A police team went looking for the 'body' but could not find the child.
Police said that doctors gave him enema to recover the jewellery from his stomach. The man along with his girlfriend was invited by a friend for Eid celebrations at her home.
