Video threats to CM Amarinder and MP Bittu, police take cognisance
CHANDIGARH: Three videos have surfaced on the social media in which men, suspected to be based in Canada, are seen giving threats to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, a matter which the state police is examining.
Bittu met the chief minister today and suggested that the Ministry of External Affairs should be asked to take up the matter as it seemed these "elements were operating from Canada.
" In one of the videos, a man is seen making objectionable remarks against former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, who was assassinated in 1995, and his grandson Ravneet Singh Bittu, the Congress MP from Ludhiana.
The man is also heard blaming Amarinder and Bittu claiming they did not extended the due regard to Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan when he visited India recently. In the second video, another man warns Amarinder and Bittu to not visit Canada in future.
He tells Bittu to recall how his grandfather was killed. Posters of militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale can be seen in the background. In another poster the word Canada can be seen.
In the third video too, a man is seen accusing Congress of being anti-Sikh and makes objectionable remarks about the party's leaders. When contacted, Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora indicated that his department had taken note of the videos. "Anybody making such threats or those of some other kind, we always take cognisance," Arora said.
Bittu and his cousin Gurkirat Singh Kotli, who too is a Congress MLA, said their family will not be cowed down. "In the video, these men are saying their men have reached Punjab to eliminate us. They are telling me to recall the time my grandfather was assassinated and threatening to eliminate me," Bittu told reporters.
But we have never felt scared and are standing like a shield amongst the people of Punjab, he said. "If they think by spilling our blood, they can achieve their nefarious designs, then we are ready to face them," he added. Bittu said that he met Chief Minister Singh here today and updated him about these threats. "I told the Chief Minister that the Ministry of External Affairs and other agencies should see how these elements are operating in Canada and elsewhere and issuing open threats," Bittu said. Kotli said "such forces whose roots are in Pakistan again want to disturb the hard earned peace in the state". "But our family is not scared of such cowardly threats. Sardar Beant Singh sacrificed his life for Punjab, these threats cannot keep us down," Kotli said.