Gangsters being used as political pawns: Navjot Singh Sidhu

Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday charged the state government for using gangsters as “political pawns” to silence the opponents

: Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday charged the state government for using gangsters as “political pawns” to silence the opponents.

Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday charged the state government for using gangsters as “political pawns” to silence the opponents.

In a scathing attack on chief minister Bhagwant Mann, Sidhu said while gangsters were being provided Z-plus security, the AAP government was pruning police protection of its political opponents.

The former president of the state Congress committee said the law and order situation in Punjab was worrying. “There has been a rampant increase in activities of organised criminals in the past one year of the AAP government in Punjab,” he said.

Sidhu was at Mansa district’s Musa village. He met parents of slain Punjabi singer-turned-Congressman Shubhdeep Singh, alias Sidhu Moose Wala, who was shot dead on May 29 last year.

Addressing the media, Sidhu charged the state government for publicising cutting down of police security of protectees.

“Moose Wala was vocal against those in power. His security was reduced and largely publicised. Similarly, my security has been reduced to Y-category to immobilise me. But, the government cannot stop me from raising my voice,” he said.

Extortion cases and murders by gangsters have become a regular affair and political dispensation is indifferent to the nuisance, he alleged.

Without naming anyone, Sidhu said the gangsters were “bhatke hoye naujawan” (misguided youths). “They (gangsters lodged in jails) are being used as a tool by politicians. Such youth can be taken into the social mainstream, but there has been an effort to reform them. The jails have become a den of unsocial activities and a ₹10-packet of tobacco is made available to them for ₹2,000 in jails,” said Sidhu, while hinting his experience in the Patiala jail.

Sidhu said the state government was non-serious to curtail lawlessness. “Punjab jails have infrastructure to jam only 2G data signal, whereas criminals are using latest communication technology without any check. State-of-the-art technologies are available to block communication systems in prisons but the government is unwilling as it intends to use the criminals,” he further alleged.

Sidhu said Moose Wala’s parents doubted the role of some individuals behind their son’s murder but the police kept on overlooking the same. The Congress leader said he would stand by the aggrieved family in their fight for justice.

Slain singer’s father Balkaur Singh said it was disturbing to watch two television interviews of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, alleged mastermind in Moose Wala’s murder, from a jail and the police remained a mute spectator to it.

AAP rubbishes charges

The state spokesperson of the AAP, Neel Garg, said Sidhu had been taking up the issue to remain in news, while the Mann government was working to curb organised crimes in the state.

“The Punjab police worked objectively in Moose Wala’s murder case and criminals behind the crime are jailed and chargesheets have been filed in a court. The state police chief has already stated that investigation is underway in the matter of Bishnoi’s TV interviews, even as it did not happen in any of the Punjab jails,” said Garg.