SHAMBHU: Several leaders of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) of Haryana, including the leader of Opposition, Abhay Chautala, were arrested while marching into Punjab to undertake the digging of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, on Thursday.
Before their arrest, some INLD workers, in a symbolic gesture of their proposed digging of the SYL canal in Punjab, dug up land near the Haryana-Punjab border on the Haryana side as part of the ‘Jal Yudh Sammelan’, while trying to enter the Punjab side of the Ghaggar Bridge near the Shambhu barrier.
According to sources, the police arrested a total of 73 party leaders, including INLD’s Haryana unit president Ashok Arora, Rajya Sabha MP Ramkumar Kashyap, Lok Sabha MP Charanjeet Singh Rohi, 13 MLAs and six ex-MLAs for violating prohibitory orders imposed in the region.
“We have arrested them for violating Section 144. They have been booked under Section 188 of IPC (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant),” said Punjab Police (Patiala Range) deputy inspector general Ashish Chaudhary.
The arrested INLD leaders were taken away in private buses and will be presented in the SDM court at Rajpura, where the police are likely to seek their 14-day judicial remand. The Patiala Central Jail has been put on alert as the arrested leaders are likely to be lodged there.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Police also denied entry to workers of the All-India Sikh Students Federation, which announced that it would stop INLD workers from entering Punjab, from reaching Kapuri or the Shambu border. Amid fears of a showdown between the INLD workers and security forces, a huge posse of personnel was deployed and 10-feet high barricades were erected at the main entry points in Haryana from where they had planned to enter Punjab. Ten companies of paramilitary forces and nearly 5,000 policemen were also deployed by the Punjab government near villages along the border with Haryana, officials said.
With the police of the two states working in tandem to tackle the situation, the roads have been barricaded and walls raised at the Shambhu border. Section 144 of the CrPC, prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons, has also been imposed and five duty magistrates have been stationed in the area.