Signboard ‘painter’ held,out on bail

After having painted black a number of sign boards in the city,Baljeet Singh Khalsa on Thursday targeted the sign board giving directions towards UT Advisor KK Sharma’s Sector 7 residence. Singh was stopped by the Chandigarh Police before he could paint the board indicating the Punjab Raj Bhawan. He was arrested and later released on bail.

Singh was booked under Section 3 (Penalty for defacement of public property) of the West Bengal Defacement of Property Act. However,being a bailable offence,Singh was bailed out. Surprisingly,the Chandigarh Police has been going lax about preventing Singh from committing the same offence in future. Vijay Kumar,DSP (East),said,“We won’t take any legal opinion to find ways to prevent the accused from committing the same offence again. At present,for the said offence,he has been booked under the West Bengal Act.”

Khalsa,who has painted notice and sign boards of various offices of the Chandigarh Administration in black,had earlier said that he has been doing it purposely to communicate to the Administration to adopt Punjabi as the official language and give preference to Punjabi speaking youth for employment.