Hero’s welcome for rape accused ex-MLA Bains as he walks out on bail after 6 months

Punjab: Pomp and show outside Barnala jail to welcome former Ludhiana MLA @simarjeet_bains who is out of jail after getting bail in in an alleged rape case after six months @IndianExpress @iepunjab pic.twitter.com/V0ZzYH4rNV

— Divya Goyal (@divya5521) February 10, 2023

In Ludhiana city, hoardings with slogans such as “Punjab di buland aawaz — jee aaya nu (the bold voice of Punjab — welcome back)” were put up across the city.

Speaking to the media after his release, the two-time former MLA from Atam Nagar, while thanking his supporters for “standing with him in tough times”, said that he will continue to raise his voice against the corrupt and whenever injustice will be meted out to the common people. He also said that he has full faith in the country’s judicial system and said the court granted him bail in the “false cases” registered against him.

Bains has always maintained that the rape case against him was a “paper case” which “existed only on papers” and it was a “political vendetta” against him. His elder brother, former MLA Balwinder Singh Bains, told The Indian Express, “We have got bail in all cases which were pending against him. He has come out of jail after more than six months. People who love him know that he is an honest man and all these cases were registered during the previous SAD-BJP and Congress governments due to political vendetta as our party has always stood with the common people and spoken against the corrupt and mighty. Huge rush outside jail to welcome him today shows that people know that the rape case against him was false. He was implicated.”

A close aide of Bains said that he was released after bails were procured in 23 cases, including 18 registered in Ludhiana and five in other districts. Booked in the rape case in 2021, Bains along with four other accused in the case, surrendered before a local court of Ludhiana on July 11, 2022.

After his surrender, Bains, while speaking to the media inside the court, had blamed the “Badal family and their stooge” for the “paper rape case” created against him. “It is a complete political drama. Behind the curtains is the Badal family and their stooge,” Bains had said, while referring to Harish Rai Dhanda who is the advocate for the woman and had contested the 2022 Punjab Assembly polls against Bains on a SAD ticket. Bains was granted bail in the rape case by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on January 25. The bitter rivalry between Bains and the Badals had kicked off after he left SAD ahead of the 2012 Assembly polls.

Earlier, the police had also arrested Bains’ two brothers — Karamjit Bains and Paramjit Bains alias Pamma — also a co-accused in a rape case. Simarjeet Bains had surrendered in July last year after a local Ludhiana court had declared him a “proclaimed offender”. Even after being declared a proclaimed offender, the Ludhiana police had failed to arrest the former MLA who had addressed multiple political rallies ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls in 2022. He surrendered himself on July 11, 2022 after the Punjab polls. Bains (52), founder-cum-president of LIP, was booked in a rape case filed in 2021 by a 44-year-old woman who alleged that the former legislator raped her multiple times in 2020 after she approached him for help in a property dispute case.

An FIR was registered against Simarjeet Bains, his brothers Karamjit Singh and Paramjit Singh, and four others under sections 376 (rape), 354 (assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B (conspiracy) of the IPC, at division number 6 police station on July 10, 2021. Simarjeet and his eldest brother Balwinder Bains won Atam Nagar and Ludhiana South seats, respectively, in 2012 as well as in 2017. However, in the 2022 election, both lost their seats. Of the four Bains brothers, Simarjeet and Balwinder are into politics, while Karamjit and Parminder are businessmen.