CHANDIGARH: Amid an escalating water war between Punjab and Haryana, the Punjab Police has taken control of the regulator gates at the Bhakra Nangal dam and has deployed its personnel there.
The incident comes despite the Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan asking the state government to withdraw it’s police personnel.
The BBMB chairman reportedly wrote of a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to deploy Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel to guard the dam.
Sources claimed that approximately two dozen police personnel are presently deployed at the dam, and two DSP rank officers have been stationed there.
A tent has been pitched by the local cadre of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the side of the canal as they are holding an indefinite dharna against the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB).
Before the controversy, only five police personnel were deployed.
Sources further said that the police personnel were deployed at the Nagal Dam on May 1 as Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann visited the dam.
Meanwhile, the police officials are claiming that only essential police personnel were deployed at the dam.
"At present, only the minimum required force is deployed at the Nangal Dam. The security was beefed up earlier as a precautionary measure,’’ said a senior official on condition of anonymity.
Punjab Education Minister and local MLA from Anadpur Sahib Harjot Singh Bains had claimed to have locked a room at the Nangal dam from where water supply is regulated.
During a high-level meeting in which it was decided that BBMB will release 4,500 cusecs of additional water to Haryana from Bhakra dam in the next eight days to meet the state’s urgent water requirements, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan had asked the Punjab officials to remove the state police personnel immediately, said sources.
The officials privy to the matter claimed that the Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, had said that deployment of Punjab Police personnel at Bhakra headworks at Nangal to take control of the regulator gates by locking them was 'unwarranted' and could create 'confrontation'.
An official said that there was a proposal last year, and it has been decided that the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will be replacing the Punjab Police and Himachal Pradesh Police at various Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) projects following a review of threat perception and security protocols.
The BBMB projects, especially the Bhakra Dam, have for long been on the radar with intelligence agencies flagging threats from time to time.
Senior Congress leader and Member of Parliament Randeep Singh Surjewala referred to the alleged deployment of Punjab Police personnel at the Bhakra headworks, claiming it was obstructing the release of water to Haryana and demanded that the Centre should get it freed from the "illegal occupation.’’