CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Police has booked Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) MLA Simarjit Singh Bains
for threatening and abusing Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur Vipul Ujwal.
Sources said that the Batala Police booked the Atam Nagar MLA under sections 186, 353, 351, 147, 177, 505 and 506 of IPC on a complaint filed by Sub Divisional Magistrate of Batala, Balbir Raj Singh. A police team from Batala has left for Ludhiana to arrest the legislator. An official said that further investigation in the case is underway.
Senior Superintendent of Police of Batala, Opinderjit Singh Ghuman confirmed that a case had been registered against Bains at Batala City Police Station on Saturday night.
The Punjab IAS Officers Association had been contemplating whether to register a case or not.
When contacted, Bains said that the case which has been registered against him on the behest of the Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
Earlier a video clip has gone viral in which Bains is seen abusing Ujwal at the civil hospital in Batala when the legislator countered the bureaucrat over alleged non-identification of the body of one of the persons killed in the blast at the fire-cracker factory in Batala in which 23 people died and 27 were injured.
"This isn't your father’s office, this an office meant for general public and here you are asking the public to leave,’’ Bains brusquely told the IAS officer. On this Ujwal replied, "Either mind your language or I am not going to talk to you."
The video has sparked off widespread condemnation from the ruling Congress leaders as they termed it as highly derogatory language. Bains was trying to help one Manjit Singh, who had been claiming that the district administration was not serious in locating the body of his brother Satnam Singh who had died in the blast.
Bains is not new to controversies as last year also, he was booked along with dozen of his supporters by the Ludhiana Police for trespassing into the Verka Milk Plant. A case on charges of house trespassing in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment, assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty, obstructing public servant in discharge of duty and criminal intimidation was registered. Before that, he was booked for trespassing in the Ludhiana passport office. In both these cases, Bains was not arrested.
In 2009, Bains and others were booked on charges of attempt to murder, voluntarily causing hurt, rioting, unlawful assembly, criminal conspiracy and Arms Act as they had attacked the then tehsildar Major Gurjinder Singh Benipal (retired) at his office in Ludhiana and in 2017 the court framed charges against him. The case hearing is going on in the court.