DEHRADUN: The district and sessions court in Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district on Thursday issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against state cabinet minister Arvind Pandey, three BJP MLAs and 12 other persons.
The court was hearing a case in which the 16 persons were accused of blocking a highway during an agitation at Jaspur in 2012. The police had booked 24 people in the case.
The court also ordered the police authorities to form a special team to arrest the accused and produce them before it on October 23.
Rajesh Bhatt, additional superintendent of police (ASP), Kashipur, said that the police have the copy of the order and will proceed accordingly.
"We have received a copy of the order issued by the honourable court and court will follow the directions," said the ASP.
The accused included the then Gadarpur MLA and the current sitting Cabinet minister Arvind Pandey, Kashipur MLA Harbhajan Singh Cheema, Rudrapur MLA Rajkumar Thukral, the sitting Jaspur MLA Aadesh Chauhan, and ex-Member of Parliament (MP) Balraj Pasi.
Reacting to the court order, Kashipur MLA Cheema said, “We didn’t block the road in 2012. There was a group staging a protest demanding the arrest of an accused who had eloped with a girl."