Maur cattle fair: 51 booked for extortion

Police on Monday booked 51 people for allegedly extorting money from farmers by charging illegal fee from them at the two cattle fairs held at Maur town in the district

Police on Monday booked 51 people for allegedly extorting money from farmers by charging illegal fee from them at the two cattle fairs held at Maur town in the district in August and September.

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On a complaint by Kulbir Singh Brar, a representative of a private firm allotted the contract for running cattle fairs across the state, the police registered a case under Sections 384 (extortion) and 447 (criminal trespass) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against Sushil Kumar, Dev Raj Sharma, Paramjit Singh, Saudagar Singh, Ramna, Vicky and 45 unidentified persons.

The complainant stated that his firm bagged the annual contract for holding cattle fairs at Rs 72 crore.

He alleged that the accused illegally charged fee from farmers visiting the fairs held at Maur on September 20 and August 30 and collected nearly Rs 50 lakh.

He alleged that the accused armed with sticks had captured the fair venue and collected money from farmers. They did not let the firm’s men enter the cattle fair venue and hence caused it a loss of Rs 50 lakh. Meanwhile, a protest march was held at Maur on Monday against registration of the case.

Accused Sushil Kumar said he, along with the other accused, is member of a committee managing around 1,700 stray cattle and they had been urging the administration to provide cow cess to manage the cattle, but to no avail.

He said they had asked the administration to allow them to collect donations from farmers to manage the stray cattle. He claimed that they never stopped company officials to enter the cattle fair ground and farmers voluntarily donated them money to manage stray cattle, for which they provided them receipts.

BLURB Accused illegally collected Rs 50-lakh fee from farmers visiting fair for sale and purchase of cattle