The Shiromani Akali Dal on Friday issued a strong warning against politics of violence and vendetta unleashed against “innocent” Akali workers by Congress ‘hoodlums’ at the behest and with active support of the State machinery in Punjab.
Conveying their heartfelt condolences and expressions of solidarity with the family of Akali worker Sukhwinder Singh who was killed when armed “Congress gangsters” attacked him in Mansa on Wednesday night, the former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal described it as “shocking beyond words”.
He said that Punjab has fast slipped into a ‘jungle raj’ since the Congress assuming office last month.
SAD president Sukhbir Badal, in a strongly worded statement, said that ever since forming a Government, the Congress party “has unleashed a reign of terror and vendetta against Akalis workers and their families in Punjab, and all this is being done to silence democratic and peaceful opposition to the open loot of the State’s resources which the Congress party and its leaders are indulging in”.
“They appeared to be in great hurry to loot the state and fleece its innocent people because they know that their Government is likely to crumble under the weight of its own contradictions,” he said.
Sukhbir said that it was shocking the State Government had treated even the High Court with utter contempt, refusing to provide security the Akali worker and his associates despite clear court orders to this effect.
“The blood of our innocent worker is on the Congress hand and the hands of the state police that refused to act even after court directions…If the police had acted in time, the incident could easily have been prevented and an innocent life saved,” he said.
Sukhbir said that even now despite public and court pressure, the police has been dragging its feet in arresting the culprits.
Incidents like these had become daily occurrences now as the police and the State Government machinery has tuned into either a mute witness or an active participant in this brazen goodaism, he said.
Sukhbir alleged that spate of ongoing attacks on Akali workers had made it clear that the Congress Government had given a go ahead to its cadre to indulge in vendetta politics.
Speaking about attack on an SAD sarpanch in Mansa district during the course of which his son Sukhwinder Singh was shot dead, Sukhbir said that no action had been taken against District Congress Committee president Bikramjit Singh Mofar.
He said that this despite the fact that the victim had given a statement that Mofar was behind the act.
He demanded immediate registration of cases as well as arrest of all Congress leaders involved in this murderous attack which had snuffed out the life of a young boy.
Sukhbir declared that the party would take up all cases of vendetta politics being unleashed by Congress workers. “We will also get proceedings initiated in court against all officers who abet such cases besides working to bring the guilty to book,” he said while urging the Akali workers to unite and hold protests at the block and district level to thwart Congressmen from indulging in vendetta.