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Seed scam: Accused sent to two-day police remand
The owner of Brar Seeds, the store from where spurious paddy seeds were recovered during a raid, was sent to two-day police remand on Monday.
The owner of Brar Seeds, the store from where spurious paddy seeds were recovered during a raid, was sent to two-day police remand on Monday.
Ludhiana police had sought the custody of the accused, identified as Harwinder Singh alias Kaka Brar, 56, to gather more information.
His counsel, Bikram Singh Sidhu said, “My client has been implicated in the case. The seeds are genuine and were purchased from M/S Karnal Agri Seeds and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). My client is innocent and we have full faith in the justice system.”
Meanwhile, Richa Rani, Division Number 5 station house officer, who is a member of the special investigation team (SIT) formed by the commissioner of police (CP) Rakesh Agrawal, said all angles of the case are being looked into.
Chief agriculture officer Narinder Singh Benipal said, “The store was selling seeds at inflated rates by branding these as high-yielding varieties of PR-128 and PR-129. The store owner’s licence has been cancelled. The seeds recovered from the store have also failed the germination test.”
PAU had launched PR-128 and PR-129 seeds, both improved versions of 201 variety of PAU, in February. Agriculture department officials claim that the seeds fell into the hands of accused even before it was officially launched by PAU.
“It is not possible to create the seeds of the newly launched variety within a month. The company needs at least a year to produce such a huge quality of seeds. So somewhere, either during the trial period or from some other source, the Truthfully Labelled (TL) seed landed in to the hands of the manufacturers who multiplied these seeds. However, we have sent the seed samples to PAU for gene testing,” said chief agricultural officer Benipal.
