Punjab Assembly privileges committee to look into complaint against DGP

As per the complaint made by Bains, he had tried to speak to Suresh Arora on several occasions in April this year upon receiving complaints against police personnel posted in Sidhwan Bet police station under Jagraon sub division. Bains said that he had learnt that an Assistant Sub Inspector posted at the police station was harassing people indulging in legal sand mining by threatening to register false cases of illegal mining against them and that in one instance he extorted Rs 60,000 from a person he had framed up.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Simarjit Singh Bains said that he made several phone calls on the phone of the DGP in order to try to speak to him over the issue of harassment by police officials and seek an appointment to meet him but he did not answer his calls. “I also sent text messages on his phone as well messages on WhatsApp but all these went unanswered. If this is how the head of the state police force behaves with an elected representative than what can be expected by an average citizen of the state,” said Bains.

In his complaint to the Speaker, Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Rana K P Singh, Bains had requested the matter to be referred to the privileges committee so that adequate punishment could be meeted out to the DGP for violating the privileges of an MLA. The committee is headed by Congress MLA Kushaldeep Singh ‘Kiki’ Dhillon and also has AAP MLA, Rupinder Kaur Ruby as a member along with Fateh Jang Bajwa and Amarinder Singh Raja Warring of Congress as well as Pawan Kumar Tinu of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) among others as members.

The DGP’s case comes up before the privileges committee at a time when he is facing political heat for not taking action against former Moga SSP, Raj Jit Singh. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has allegd that the former SSP was being shielded by the DGP who did not allow a vigilance probe against him to proceed for three years. Leader of Opposition, Sukhpal Khaira, has also demanded that a CBI probe be ordered into the DGP’s actions and alleged links with tainted police officers and that he should be removed from his post pending that inquiry.