ASI slaps child in presence of Punjab Cabinet Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak, suspended

Ravi Dhaliwal

Dhariwal (Gurdaspur), April 25

In a bid to ‘impress’ Cabinet minister Lal Chand Kataruchak, an ASI ended up getting suspended.

The minister, accompanied by officers of the district administration, was on a visit to the Dhariwal grain market on Monday. He was travelling in his official car at a slow speed and just as he reached the grain market gate, he witnessed some commotion ahead of him.

ASI Yusuf Masih of Dhariwal police station, who was on security duty, had slapped an 11-year-old child, who was trying to earn his bread and butter by plying a rickshaw.

His only fault was that his rickshaw somehow strayed in the path which was being taken by the minister’s vehicle and came face to face with it.

Masih knew Kataruchak was watching him. He tried to reason with the child to clear the way for “Sahib’s gaddi”. However, the confused child could not decipher what was happening around him with all sirens and hooters playing out with a high decibel noise. The ASI then proceeded to slap him in full public glare.

Some local newsmen were standing in the vicinity. They protested to the ASI’s seniors, but to no avail.

Although the slapping incident could not be recorded by the media, they managed to film what the ASI was saying in the incident’s aftermath.

They stopped Kataruchak’s cavalcade and told him “how hard the sturdy cop had slapped a poor undernourished child.”

Many of them also had the audacity to tell him, “Is this the way the poor are treated in India?”

The minister rang up SSP Harjit Singh and told him what had happened. He also asked him to immediately suspend Yusuf Masih. Five minutes later, the ASI’s senior officer got orders to “suspend Masih and shift him to the Police Lines pending an inquiry.”

What happened and how

Cabinet minister Lal Chand Kataruchak, accompanied by officers of the district administration, was on a visit to the Dhariwal grain market on Monday. He was travelling in his official car at a slow speed and just as he reached the grain market gate, he witnessed some commotion ahead of him. ASI Yusuf Masih of Dhariwal police station, who was on security duty, had slapped an 11-year-old child, who was trying to earn his bread and butter by plying a rickshaw. His only fault was that his rickshaw somehow strayed in the path which was being taken by the minister’s vehicle and came face to face with it. Masih knew Kataruchak was watching him. He tried to reason with the child to clear the way for “Sahib’s gaddi”. However, the confused child could not decipher what was happening. The ASI then proceeded to slap him in full public glare.