Residents protest, Admn orders closure of fish market

Tribune News Service

Patiala, December 10 

Following a massive protest by residents of the factory area here today, the district administration ordered the closure of the fish market that has reportedly been operating illegally in the area for the past several years. 

Patiala Deputy Commissioner Ramvir Singh ordered in the evening that the market shops should be shut and the shopkeepers were permitted to shift their belongings by Sunday afternoon. 

Former Municipal Councillor Sukhwinder Pal Minta said the market shopkeepers had lost the case in a local court, following which the court had declined any stay. He said despite repeated requests to the administration for the past many weeks, no one was interested in executing the court order. So the area residents staged a dharna for the cause, he said. 

The administration had now asked the shopkeepers to close the shops till further orders, following the protest. Heavy police was deployed in the area due to the protest. Sources said some local politicians were backing the fish market and were pressurising the administration “to let the market continue”. 

Area Municipal Councillor Harpreet Kaur and her husband Sukhwinder Pal Minta, former Municipal Councillor, were up in arms against the district administration and had approached the court to seek the closure of the market. They had even taken up the matter with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal during his ‘sangat darshan programme’ a few weeks ago, and the Deputy Chief Minister had asked the Patiala Municipal Corporation to initiate an appropriate action in this regard. 

In September, a month after the district authorities had removed the fish market from the area due to a number of complaints by residents, the market was again allowed to operate after a local court stayed the proceedings. 

However, the affected shopkeepers said they should be provided with separate shops as the market was the source of their livelihood.