Protest rally held against govt failure to safeguard memorials of freedom fighters

Leaders of the CPI and KCCC staged a rally to express resentment against police and district administration.

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During the protest outside the mini-secretariat in Ludhiana on Thursday. (Source: Gurmeet Singh)

Leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Kamagatamaru Centenary Celebrations Committee staged a rally to express resentment against police and district administration here on Thursday. They said that the Punjab government had failed to honour its commitment to safeguard memorials of the freedom fighters.

The protesters were speaking over the failure of the police to nab culprits involved in disfiguring the statue of Baba Gurmukh Singh Lalton at Lalton village and to demand immediate arrest of the culprits. They said that the names of the culprits were known to the police but they were not acting because of the pressure of the higher-ups.

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This incident had occurred on October 3, 2014, and since then the committee members have submitted memorandum for seven times to the police commissioner, three times to the deputy commissioners and dozens of times to other police officers. They also met several MLAs. The Desh Bhagat Yadgar Committee, Jalandhar, also met the deputy commissioner, Ludhiana. But the administration is continuously dilly-dallying the matter. Lately, the only action they took was to transfer chowki in-charge of Lalton police chowki Gurbakshish Singh and assigned the job to a sub-inspector. But nothing has happened even after three weeks since then, said the protesters.

They alleged that the government was apathetic to the sacrifices made by the freedom fighters. A similar situation had risen when people wanted to hold a public function in the memory of Baba Dulla Singh at Jalaldiwal village.

Those who addressed the rally included Dr Arun Mitra, assistant secretary, CPI district Ludhiana unit, Surinder Singh Jalaldiwal, D P Maur, Prof A K Maleri, Gurnam Singh Sidhu and Satish Sachdeva.

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