Punjab minister called ‘parrot’ on FB: PA of Akali MLA, NRIs booked

The complainant is the minister’s son Brajinder Singh alias Makhan Singh Brar. He had lodged the complaints on May 3.

The Moga police on Wednesday lodged two FIRs under the IT Act against the personal assistant of an Akali MLA and two NRIs for a Facebook post allegedly likening Punjab Agriculture Minister Tota Singh to a parrot. While the FIR against PA to Nihal Singh Wala MLA Rajwinder Kaur was registered at the Sadar police station, the other against NRIs Rajwinder Singh Khosa and Ravi Baasi was registered at Kot Isey Khan police station. The complainant is the minister’s son Brajinder Singh alias Makhan Singh Brar. He had lodged the complaints on May 3.

The message, along with a photograph of Tota Singh, said: “Last night, in village Talwandi Malliyan of Moga, the feathers of Jathedar Tota Singh were shredded. Tota Singh climbed on the steps of the village well to address people when a few drug addicts started demanding poppy husk. Tota replied that he was not there to distribute poppy husk, at this the addicts started shredding his feathers.”

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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