The police in Himachal Pradesh Wednesday registered two separate FIRs against two NHAI officials on charges of endangering life, intentional hurt and wrongful restraint, two days after state minister Anirudh Singh was booked for allegedly assaulting the duo during a visit to the site of a building collapse in Shimla. The FIRs were registered after eight residents of Bhattakufar, including some whose houses have been affected allegedly due to road widening work being carried out by NHAI, and a member of Chamyana Panchayat filed separate complaints. An FIR under sections 126 (2) wrongful restraint, 125 (acts endangering life or personal safety of others), 352 (intentional hurt) and 3 (5) criminal liability of several people was registered against Achal Jindal, a manager at a four-lane project of the NHAI in Shimla, on the complaint of Anil Kumar, Het Ram, Giri Thakur, K R Mehta, Anil Verma, Sohan Thakur, Rajesh Thakur and Ashok Rajta. The complainant alleged Jindal stopped them from meeting Minister Anirudh Singh. It quoted Jindal as saying, “We are from NHAI, there is no dearth of money and compensation would be given. But if you complain to the minister, work would be stopped, no compensation would be given in future, and false cases would be registered against the residents.” “When we protested, Jindal manhandled a local resident by twisting his arm and used unparliamentary language,” they claimed. Another FIR was registered at Dhalli police station against Jindal and his site engineer Yogesh Verma. The FIR was registered on the complaint of Chamayana Panchayat member Nihal Thakur On Monday, an FIR was filed against Singh on charges of wrongful restraint and voluntarily causing hurt after Jindal filed a complaint alleging that he and Verma were assaulted by the Panchayati Raj Minister while inspecting the building collapse site.
