Taking things seriously, Chief Minister Harish Rawat has ordered the Haridwar DM to conduct a magisterial inquiry into the matter of City Patrol Unit (CPU) team having misbehaved with some tourists from Delhi on Tuesday night.
Sources said that a family from Delhi had reached Haridwar in a car on Tuesday. A team of CPU personnel, engaged in enforcing traffic rules, picked up an argument with the family over traffic violation. later, it was reported that CPU personnel had misbehaved with the family and even beaten the male member of the family. It was also alleged that CPU personnel had directed the family members to say in writing that nothing had happened with them. Seeing the issue taking a grim turn, the district police intervened. Meanwhile, a delegation of local Congress leaders met CM Rawat over the issue and requested him to conduct a magisterial inquiry.
DM Haridwar Harbans Singh Chugh said that taking note of media reports regarding the misbehavior with tourists from Delhi by CPU personnel, a magisterial inquiry has been ordered. The inquiry would be done by a team led by city magistrate Jai Bharat Singh, he said, adding that the city magistrate Singh has been made the inquiry officer and they have been directed to submit report within four days.
CPU personnel has been facing flak for its focus on slapping penalties on the traffic rule violators in Haridwar, Dehradun and Nainital districts where they are operating.
It has courted numerous controversies in its short span of existence for its alleged highhandedness. It invited ire of the political parties and the common residents who faced the heat for violating traffic rules in Dehradun district. Worse, the shopkeepers in Dehradun are vociferous too, demanding dismantlement of CPU, alleging they are milking money out of the vulnerable. People, especially youths, are of the view that CPU has acquired notoriety for extorting money from the people instead of focusing on maintaining traffic norms or preventing crimes.
Mention worthy, the unit came into being in Dehradun in April, 2014 at the behest of the former DGP BS Sidhu who had conceived it, inspired by the existing US model. CPU was later expanded to Haridwar and Haldwani again at the initiative of Sidhu to enforce order on the bustling roads of the two important cities of the State.