Newsmaker | Punjab’s Bains brothers used muscle and might to run the show until law caught up

Of four siblings, popularly known as “Bains brothers”, Simarjeet, 52, the youngest, and Balwinder Singh Bains, 63, the eldest, are two-time former MLAs from Atam Nagar and Ludhiana South, respectively. However, with an AAP wave sweeping through Punjab, the brothers lost in the recent Assembly polls.

The other two brothers — Karamjit and Paramjit — handle the family’s sewing-machine manufacturing business and weren’t much in the limelight until they were named co-accused in the rape case, along with Simarjeet. The three Bains brothers have now been arrested in the alleged rape case after the woman alleged that Simarjeet “raped her multiple times” in 2020 when she approached him for help in a property dispute case. She also named Karamjit, who was the first to be arrested, and Paramjit.

In the 2022 polls, Simarjeet was up against SAD’s Harish Rai Dhanda, the advocate for the woman who filed the rape complaint. However, both lost to AAP candidate Kulwant Singh Sidhu. So did Simarjeet’s brother Balwinder from Ludhiana South, thus ending the Lok Insaaf Party’s political outing in Punjab.

The Bains brothers’ clout extended far beyond the two Ludhiana seats that they represented between themselves. So much so that the police in its chargesheet submitted in the court clearly expressed its helplessness in arresting Simarjeet in the rape case fearing that it would “create a law and order problem.”

It took eight months for the FIR to be registered — the woman filed a complaint in November 2020 and the FIR was finally registered in July 2021. Simarjeet also managed to evade police arrest until his eventual surrender on Monday – a year after the case was filed and multiple non-bailable warrants were issued by the court, including the order to attach the properties of the accused. In April this year, the court declared the accused “proclaimed offenders”. Simarjeet had even addressed several campaign rallies ahead of the polls before getting a temporary stay on his arrest from the Supreme Court in February. While the court had given him a reprieve, it said, “Have you seen (his) activities?… Is this the way to behave?”

Ahead of the February 20 polls, another drama had ensued when police “arrested” Simarjeet Bains in a case of poll violence, only to release him hours later. Simarjeet was also involved in a case of allegedly flouting Covid norms, in which the court had observed that he “has been hoodwinking the process of law” after he failed to appear for the hearings.

An affidavit submitted by the Punjab Police in the High Court says that 22 criminal cases have been registered against Simarjeet, of which eight are pending. While he has been acquitted in seven cases, cancellation reports have been filed in the other cases.

Simarjeet has always cried “vendetta” and maintained that both the SAD-BJP and Congress governments filed the cases against him in retaliation against the campaigns he led against the sand, cable and transport mafia and for “exposing the other misdeeds” of the Badals and Congress.

Simarjeet has over the years built a “pro-people” image, largely through antics such as thrashing government officials and “raiding” government offices to “catch corrupt employees on camera” – while beaming his action live on Facebook. While these incidents have invited cases against him, apart from accusations of “blackmail”, Bains claims people “love him for being unafraid”.

In 2016, the Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha called in marshals to throw out the Bains brothers when they disrupted proceedings over being denied permission for a discussion on charging Rajasthan Rs 16 lakh crore for sharing river waters.

Balwinder and Simarjeet entered Punjab politics through factions of the Akali Dal, but tasted victories in the Assembly polls as Independents, before floating their own “Lok Insaaf Party”.

Balwinder, the first to enter politics, started with SAD (Amritsar) and won as an Independent councillor in 1991. Simarjeet was elected as an Independent councillor in 2002 and joined SAD (Badal) in 2004. Later, in 2007, he won the Ludhiana councillor polls on an Akali ticket. But after a fallout with the Badals, the brothers contested as Independents in 2012.

Ahead of the 2017 Punjab polls, they floated their ‘Lok Insaaf Party’, which entered into an alliance with the AAP. Of the five seats the party contested, they won two, Atam Nagar and Ludhiana South. But the brothers walked out of the alliance soon after.

Insisting that the rape case against him is “political vendetta”, Bains, after surrendering in the court, said, “It is political drama.. Behind the curtains is the Badal family and their stooge (advocate Dhanda)…Those who have orchestrated it will be exposed soon. It’s my promise.”