Ludhiana: Cong MP Bittu among four held in MC gate locking case
MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and three other Congress leaders arrested for locking Ludhiana municipal corporation office gate during protest. Sent to judicial remand in Nabha jail.
The Ludhiana police on Tuesday arrested Ludhiana member of Parliament (MP) Ravneet Singh Bittu, former cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, former MLA and district Congress president Sanjay Talwar and former senior deputy mayor Sham Sundar Malhotra for locking the main gate of the Ludhiana municipal corporation head office during a Congress’ protest here recently.
The police produced all four leaders before the court of judicial magistrate Tanishth Goyal, which sent them to 14-day judicial remand in Ludhiana central jail. All four leaders were later sent to Nabha jail over security concerns.
Ludhiana central jail superintendent Shivraj Singh Nandgarh said the Ludhiana jail is crowded, and after discussing the matter with the additional director general of police (prisons ADGP) the leaders were shifted to Nabha jail.
Meanwhile, all four leaders have filed bail applications, on which the court has reserved the decision till Wednesday.
After Bittu and other Congress leaders had announced to produce themselves for arrest in protest for lodging an FIR against them for putting a lock on the Ludhiana MC building, the police on Tuesday detained them from their houses. However, they managed to dodge the police and reached the mini-secretariat. The leaders along with workers tried to enter the mini secretariat by breaking the barricading. After a brief resistance, the police arrested them.
District Congress president Sanjay Talwar said the police reached their residences around 8.30 am and detained them. However, they managed to dodge the police.
Bittu said his spree to visit government offices will continue and “wherever any laxity in work is found, we will again lock the office”. “Corruption is at its peak in government offices and people are being harassed,” he said.
Ludhiana commissioner of police Kuldeep Singh Chahal said the leaders had produced themselves for the arrest. Following a brief scuffle, the police took the Congress leaders in a van after arresting them.
Being targeted for speaking against Chadha: Bittu
“A false FIR on the statement of a watchman, who was not even present there, was registered against us,” Bitti said. He said, “A case was lodged against me and other leaders because I spoke against Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Raghav Chadha. If the police have booked us for putting up a lock at the MC office building, why didn’t they register a case against MLA Gurpreet Gogi and others who broke seals and locks of shops that were sealed by the civic body?”
Bittu said chief minister Bhagwant Mann, who had asked the Punjab Vidhan Sabha speaker to lock the House doors from inside, should also be booked over violation of the Constitution.