Protest against Badals’ bus revs up Opposition
Saturday, 11/07/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
RUPNAGAR: Traffic near Kurali on the Chandigarh-Ropar road was hit for the second day on Friday as villagers refused to relent, demanding a case be registered against the driver of a bus owned by chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s family for running a scooterist over on Thursday.
Two months after the Moga molestation case involving another bus owned by the ruling family in Punjab, Thursday’s accident assumed political colour with leaders, including state Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, headed for the protest site to demand the booking of the driver of Dabwali Transport Company.
More than 24 hours after scooterist Swaran Singh died on national highway 205 near his native Behrampur Zimidari village, hundreds of villagers and representatives of political parties kept up the pressure on the Punjab government to book the Badal company bus driver instead of a car driver.
The protesters alleged that the police were shielding the bus driver despite eyewitness accounts. They maintained that the bus had hit the scooter not the car. Swaran’s cousin Rajinder Singh claimed that the deputy commissioner had also announced that the bus driver would be booked but the car driver had been implicated.
MAN FRAMED: SONI
State Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, was at the protest site with party colleagues Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Jagmohan Singh Kang, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Charanjit Singh Channi, Lakhwinder Kaur Garcha, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, Shamsher Singh Rai, and Gurinder Pal Billa.
Congress Rajya Sabha member Ambika Soni said: “The entire government machinery came together to save the driver of a Badal bus. An innocent car driver was pressurised to take the blame,” she said.
CPI’s Joginder Dyal, AAP’s Himmat Singh Shergill, CPM’s Darshan Singh Mattu, BSP’s Rajinder Singh Raja and SADA’s Kuldeep Singh Bhagowal also spoke.
