Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday urged the Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore to direct the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to recommend the dismissal of Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa for “allowing a free rein in gangsters in jail which had created havoc in the State besides giving patronage to notorious gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria who was involved in the murder of former Akali Sarpanch Dalbir Dhilwan”.
A delegation of SAD-BJP leaders, led by SAD president Sukhbir Badal and BJP’s former state unit president Vijay Sampla, briefed the Governor about increasing cases of gangster related crimes maintaining that this was taking place due to the Jails Minister’s patronage “who is allowing gangsters to operate with impunity from jail”.
It urged the Governor to recommend a CBI inquiry into the gangster–Minister nexus, besides sending a report to the Union Home Ministry on the total collapse of the law and order machinery in Punjab besides urging for justice to the aggrieved family of Dalbir Singh.
The delegation was accompanied by the family of Dalbir Singh who was murdered brutally on November 18. The family members said that they were not getting justice in the case with the police yet to record their statement.
The family members, including the son and newly married daughter, also told the Governor how Sukhjinder Randhawa was threatening them into silence by stating that the murder of their father was a ‘mamooli’ (ordinary) incident.
Sukhbir Badal, showing the videos of notorious gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria celebrating his birthday in jail, said that gangsters seemed to have taken over the State and had become so bold that they had openly threatened former minister Bikram Majithia when he exposed the gangster- Minister nexus.
Speaking on the police role in the matter, Sukhbir said that it appeared that it was also under some pressure as the police did not register the statement of the victim’s family. “Later, when SAD legislators met the State DGP to bring the threats received by Majithia to his notice, there was no apparent action. However, within two hours, IG Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh gave a statement to the media giving a clean chit to Jaggu Bhagwanpuria saying that he could not have issued any threat to Majithia,” he said.
“Action should be taken against the IG, including immediate suspension, for indulging in unprofessional conduct by defending a gangster,” demanded Sukhbir while bringing it to the Governor’s notice that the IG was a close confidante of the Jails Minister.
SAD president pointed that there had been repeated cases of gangsters eliminating their rivals while sitting in jail and even taking credit for the same as had happened in the case of killings in Malerkotla and Malout recently.
Sampla said that there was fear in civil society with prominent businessmen and professionals getting extortion threats, and no effort was being made to check this lawlessness and in fact gangsters were operating safely from jails.
Majithia showed the threats he had received from Bhagwanpuria and his associates on social media besides disclosing how the Bhagwanpuria group was running an Rs 1,000 crore Kabaddi racket by coercing and threatening Kabaddi players.