Kapurthala: Punjab Congress leader and Bhulath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira has been booked for allegedly threatening SDM Bhulath, officials said on Friday. It is learnt that a case has been registered against Khaira at Bhulath police station under sections 186, 189, 342, 500 and 506. The said sections are related to obstructing, holding threat of injury to a public servant, wrongful confinement, defamation and criminal intimidation.
The case has been registered following a complaint lodged by Bhulath SDM Sanjiv Sharma in March this year. In the complaint, Sharma said that Sukhpal Khaira along with his colleagues reached his office and threatened him on the issue of girdawri. The SDM further said that the same day Khaira did a Facebook live session in order to “humiliate and demean me".
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He accused Sukhpal Khaira of asking asking him “unnecessary questions” at the office. The Bholath SDM has written to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Punjab Chief Secretary seeking action against Sukhpal Khaira. The Bholath SDM said that Khaira had given notice to hold dharna at his office on Apr 10. He however said that the proposed dharna was “unprovoked and uncalled for” and would have created an “atmosphere of threat, intimidation and bullying at the Sub Divisional complex”.
However former opposition leader and MLA from Bhulath Sukhpal Singh Khaira has denied the allegations made by the Bholath SDM against him. Khaira has even termed the case “political vendetta” by the Bhagwant Mann government. The Congress leader said that the FIR is the result of their sit-in outside the SDM office against the “negligence of the district administration to conduct a special vigil on the loss of wheat crop” in the state.
“The SDM, who arrived at the protest, assured the people of compensation saying that the government has a shortage of patwaris. His speech is part of a video shared by me on my Facebook account,” the Congress MLA said. Khaira said Bhagwant Mann government was targeting him “due to his outspoken criticism of misuse of the National Security Act (NSA), sending Sikh youth to Assam jails, mass arrests of Sikh youth, women and children and other atrocities”.
