Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia today requested chief minister Bhagwant Mann to order a CBI probe into Rs 100 crore cyber fraud complaint submitted by a woman Inspector to the Punjab police chief as per the wishes of the accused – cabinet minister Harjot Bains.
Addressing the media here, Mr Bikram Majithia said following the expose in which Inspector Amanjot Kaur had accused the minister and his wife Jyoti Yadav of obstructing investigation into a fraudulent call centre operating out of a basement in Mohali and even shielding the crooks, Mr Harjot Bains had announced that he welcomed a fair probe into the entire matter.
The chief minister should go by Mr Bains’s word and order an impartial CBI probe into the matter as requested by the minister”.Mr Majithia said a CBI or a high court monitored probe into the case was necessary as the Punjab Police could not be expected to deliver justice in the case.He said the Punjab Police had not got to the bottom of the affair despite the fact that the case was brought to its notice by the woman Inspector eight months back.
Asserting that Punjab was witnessing both a financial emergency and an emergency on the law and order front, the SAD leader said the State debt had increased by Rs one lakh crore in the last two and a half years yet the AAP government was finding it difficult to pay salaries to employees.He said the government had recently increased VAT on both petrol and diesel besides removing a power subsidy which was giving a benefit of Rs 2,000 crore to eleven lakh power consumers to mop up finances.
“Instead of penalizing the common man and increasing inflation and making agricultural operations more expensive by increasing VAT on diesel, the AAP government should put an end to wasteful expenditure including advertisements, publicity events and campaigns in other States”.
Mr Majithia also highlighted how no one was safe in the State. He said recently a NRI family was shot at in Muktsar even as dry fruit worth crores of rupees was looted from a Mandi in Amritsar. “Every day we witness one act of goondaism or another. The situation is such that no one is ready to invest in Punjab even as local businessmen and professionals fear for their lives due to constant extortion calls”.
Speaking on the occasion, SAD Working President Balwinder Singh Bhundar said the AAP government had not only gone back on all its promises but had bankrupted the State besides ushering in goonda raj and overseeing the spread of drug addiction across the State.
“No development work is being done even as civic services are in a mess”. Asserting that the SAD would not remain silent, Mr Bhundar said the party would hold district level dharnas to force the AAP government to fulfill the promises made to the people.