Stepping up its campaign against repression, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday set up an advocates’ panel, besides launching a helpline and a website for the same.
The move came at a time when the SAD president Sukhbir Badal is leading a ‘Jabar Virodhi lehar’ (anti-force wave) across the state by touring various assembly segments and meeting the “victims” of repression, At the same time, the SAD patron and former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is also listening to the grievances of party workers and leaders at the party headquarters.
Badal on Wednesday held consultations with a large number of advocates who had been specifically called for an emergency meeting to prepare the party's strategy to fight repression of the Congress regime.
The party has then decided to set up a panel of senior and eminent advocates of the Punjab and Haryana High Court as well as advocates from the lower courts right down to mofussil levels to ensure that the police officials who carried out repression against Akali workers are made to face the law of the land.
SAD has also started a helpline and launched a website — akalivakil.com — to protect the party workers against repression unleashed by the present Congress government in the state.
“Congress has unleashed a wave of repression and vendetta against innocent Akali workers at the grass root level. Party high command has already decided to confront this challenge head on. A state-wide Jabar Virodhi lehar is already in progress spearheaded by the party president in which all the senior leaders of the party are also taking part,” said the party spokesperson Harcharan Singh Bains.
Bains said that the former Chief Minister Badal spent two days at the party headquarters on August 1 and 2 listening to grievances of the party workers on the vendetta unleashed against them. “False cases are being registered indiscriminately against Akali workers,” he added.