Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday condemned the shocking incident of a Bathinda head constable being mercilessly beaten up and paraded naked by the power-drunk sons of an Akali Sarpanch, saying the Badals had plunged Punjab into the pre-Independence anarchic days, treating government servants like owned slaves, to be abused and humiliated at will.The ignominious manner in which Head Constable Malkit Singh was thrashed and then publicly humiliated by being paraded naked and even made to lick the boots of the sons of the Vir Kalan sarpanch was a grim reminder of the extent to which the Badal-led Akalis had stooped in their megalomaniac obsession for power, said Captain Amarinder. Extending his support to the aggrieved cop, Captain Amarinder demanded immediate arrests of the culprits, asserting that such assaults on public servants could not be tolerated. The gravity of the act demands immediate and strong action against those guilty of the heinous act, said the Punjab Congress president.The incident, which reflected the complete collapse of the law and order in the state ahead of the Assembly elections, was symptomatic of the shameful depths to which the Akalis had stooped in their treatment of the people, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief said.
Captain Amarinder vowed to bring every Akali guilty of such criminal acts to book. “I will personally ensure that every one of them is thrown behind bars,” he promised.It doesn’t need much imagination to know how a ruling party, which treats policemen with such shameful lack of dignity, would have been treating its ordinary citizens for the last 10 years, said Captain Amarinder, adding that the people of Punjab were living in constant terror of the wrath of the power-struck Akali leaders and their kin.He pointed out that this was not the first incidence of Akali leaders unleashing violence and terror against cops and ordinary citizens of the state alike. In September, an ex-Akali sarpanch and his accomplices had thrashed a head constable in Batala. A woman was beaten up at the Prime Minister’s rally just a couple of weeks ago as she tried to raise her voice against an injustice. Captain Amarinder blamed the Badals for this lawlessness, which they said was the result of their direct patronage of goondas and mafias in the state. Even now, instead of making an effort to amend the situation, the Badals were busy finding ways to woo the voters through electoral sops and promises to cover up their lapses of the last 10 years, he said, pointing to the total economic and social chaos into which the Akali government had thrown Punjab. The series of decisions and schemes being hastily announced by the Badal government virtually every day are not going to befool the people any longer, Captain Amarinder asserted, adding that the anti-people policies of the Akalis had been thoroughly exposed.There was unrest and tension in every section of Punjab’s populace, Captain Amarinder observed, citing agitations and protests by government employees, teachers, and other cross-sections of the society crumbling under the burden of the misrule of the corrupt and greedy Akalis.