With the Moga molestation and death case haunting the Punjab Government due to the involvement of a bus of Orbit Aviation, owned by the ruling Badal family, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday asked all buses of the company to go off the road for the time being. It is understood that an orientation programme will be organised for the staff of the transport company who operate the buses in this period. The buses will be back on the roads after a while, sources said. The decision came amid mounting tension in Moga as the family of the 13-year-old girl refused to take compensation offered by the State Government.
“The Deputy Chief Minister, who is also the Home Minister of the State, has ordered that no bus of Orbit Aviation would ply,” an official spokesperson of the Government said. Sukhbir has also asked the company to send bus operating staff on orientation course, he claimed. “No Orbit bus should be on roads till completion of course,” said Sukhbir, who is among the owners of the company.
Punjab Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party too had launched a Statewide agitation demanding registration of cases against the owners of Orbit Aviation. Sources said the decision to suspend the operation of the buses was taken to defuse the tension as family members of the girl have refused to perform her last rites rejecting Government’s compensation offer, and demanding action against the owners of the vehicle. The body of the girl has been kept in mortuary.
Several State Government officials met the family members and tried to persuade them to take the offer of the State Government. However, all attempts by the State authorities have failed so far. The Government was offering a compensation of Rs 20 lakh, a Government job for the mother of the deceased, her free treatment, and holding trial of the case in a fast track court.
During the protest on Saturday, Orbit buses were stopped at various places, including Sector 43 Bus stand in Chandigarh, Bathinda and Moga by political activists. The Opposition is sensing that it could strike on the Punjab Government on the issue and put it in a tight corner. Sharpening attack against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab Congress demanded his resignation for “lacking courage” to personally pay condolences to the family of the teenage girl who was killed after being molested and thrown off a moving bus.
“Your son Sukhbir Singh Badal is the Deputy Chief Minister and your daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal is the Union Minister. None of you have the guts to meet the family and assure justice,” Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa alleged in a statement issued here.
Ruling SAD countered the Congress and accused it of playing politics on the body. Advocating strict punishment to the guilty, it advised Congress not to “play politics on a dead body”. SAD general secretary Maheshinder Singh Grewal said it was absurd to demand that a case should be registered against an owner of a bus whose employees had committed the wrongdoing. He said in legal jurisprudence only the person who committed a crime was liable to face prosecution.