CHANDIGARH/NEW DELHI: Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy to Ferozepur was stopped by protesting farmers in a major security breach, the Centre on Friday stepped up pressure, recording statements of 14 senior Punjab officials, including Director General of Police Siddharth Chattopadhyay, while issuing a show-cause notice to Bathinda senior superintendent of police Ajay Maluja.
The actions came on a day when the Supreme Court directed the Punjab and Haryana high court registrar general to seize records of all the security measures for Modi’s visit. It asked the Centre and Punjab to put the proceedings of their respective probe panels on hold till Monday.
However, the committee set up by the Union home ministry visited the flyover near Piareana village in Ferozepur where Modi’s cavalcade got stuck, spending about 40 minutes there. It later went to the BSF’s sector headquarters where it met senior police and civil officials. They were were questioned for hours, a senior government official in Delhi said.
Earlier in the day, Punjab Chief Secretary Anirudh Tewari submitted a report to the Centre. It is understood to have termed the farmers’ protests as spontaneous and claimed it had deployed extra manpower in the wake of agitations in several districts.
The show-cause notice to the Bathinda SSP held him responsible for not taking enough steps to sanitise the PM’s route. It said he failed to go by the rule book and also did not make any contingency plan. “It is abundantly clear that the route clearance was given without adequately attending to all security concerns. You were mandated to make adequate arrangements and also to make a contingency plan...
It is obvious that a contingency plan with attendant security deployment was either not made or not put to effect,” the notice said. He was also been accused of deploying only a small number of police personnel. “Throughout the route only skeletal police deployment was observed,” the notice added.
State panel puts its proceedings on hold
The Punjab Police registered a case against unknown persons for blocking the PM’s cavalcade. Besides, a panel set up by the state to probe the lapse put its proceedings on hold following directions by the Supreme Court.