Ludhiana:
Clash broke out between villagers and the police during the nomination filing process for the agriculture cooperative society elections in Tajpur village of Raikot.
The situation became tense on Thursday night when police resorted to a lathi charge to control the situation, and videos of the incident have surfaced online.
However, after the incident, the police have booked at least 40 persons including village Sarpanch Hardev Kaur. Some of the other accused have been identified as Gurjinder Singh, Sukhwinder Singh, Hardeep Singh, Gurjant Singh and Baljit Singh while around 30-35 persons are unidentified.
According to the villagers, the returning officer was biased and alleged that he rejected the nomination of all those belonging to opposition parties while accepting papers of those belonging to the ruling party.
Sarpanch Hardev Kaur’s son, Baljit Singh said that the officer had rejected 16 nominations and accepted the nomination of only those candidates who were belonging to the ruling party. He alleged that when they were protesting against the officer for his biasness in performing duty, the police used force to lift up the protest.
Congress leader and constituency in-charge Kamil Amar Singh alleged that the returning officer was biased, intentionally disqualifying opposition candidates.
Meanwhile the FIR was registered on the statement of Surinder Singh, Inspector, Co-operative Society Circle (Barmi village) of Raikot. He stated in his statement that due to some mistakes in the papers, the nomination papers of some candidates were rejected and those were even informed of the reasons while the list of candidates whose papers were accepted was pasted on the gate of the society.
“But, the candidates whose papers were rejected turned up with their supporters and barged in the office of cooperative society and locked us in the room. They sat on protest outside the gate and gathered more villagers by provoking them,” he said while alleging, “later when the police force unlocked the doors while helping us to come, the accused opened an attack at the police party.”
Later, the police resorted to lathi charge to control the situation and the police have booked the accused under sections 132, 221, 127 (6), 296, 190, 194 (2), 351 (1) of BNS, registered at Sadar Raikot police station.