Govt won’t arrest SAD leaders booked for road blockades

CHANDIGARH: The state government has no plans to arrest Akali leaders even as almost the entire top brass of the party has been booked by name for non-bailable offences. Pulling the rug from under their feet yet again, the Capt Amarinder Singh government has decided not to arrest any of the Akali leaders, including party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, even as they continue to dare him to arrest them.

Capt Amarinder Singh

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 11

The state government has no plans to arrest Akali leaders even as almost the entire top brass of the party has been booked by name for non-bailable offences.

Pulling the rug from under their feet yet again, the Capt Amarinder Singh government has decided not to arrest any of the Akali leaders, including party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, even as they continue to dare him to arrest them.

It has been decided to just investigate the cases registered against the Akali leaders for blocking national highways and present challans directly in the court.

The arrest of leaders for investigation is not required and electronic proof against these leaders for having blocked national highways is there, which can be submitted before the court when the challan is presented, a top CMO official told The Tribune.

A decision to this effect comes in the wake of Akalis challenging the government to arrest them and their strategy to revisit their history of “morchas”. So while the Akalis planned their strategies for getting arrested and thus gaining politically, the government has nipped their “political rising” in the bud. Dismissing charges levelled by the Aam Aadmi Party of a tacit understanding between the Congress and the Akali-BJP alliance, sources in the CMO say the Congress would not want to give the Akali-BJP leaders mileage in the civic polls.

The leaders who had staged dharnas and blocked national highways were booked under several sections of the National Highways Act, just after they claimed victory in forcing the government to accept most of their demands, including withdrawal of attempt-to-murder charge against Akali leaders in Mallanwala firing.

On Friday night, the government had booked several Akali leaders under various sections of the National Highways Act. Sources say that the CM was advised against “going soft” on the Akalis and it was late on Friday night that he gave his consent to book all leaders who had staged dharnas.