Tarn Taran diary: Athlete’s career marred by police atrocities

There has been no end to the misery of an international athlete honoured by the district administration on the Republic Day. Balbir Singh, famously known as Balla of Bhojranwala village in Chabal police station, is 36 years of age and even represented the Indian team in the international competitions of judo-karate several times. He also won medals in several events. Eligible for several posts in the Police Department, paramilitary forces and other commercial establishments, a section of his villagers said he came on the radar of the police ever since he started gaining popularity among the people of the area with his humanitarian works. The Chabal police registered a case of abduction of a girl in 2009 against him without inquiring the facts. The police also accused him of smuggling and implicated him in a fake currency case. Nothing was recovered from him but the case was still registered under suspicious circumstances. The police neither arrested him nor produced challan in the court for years. He approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court and challenged the case which was cancelled by the High Court. The police recently once again tried to bring him in its net and detained him from Chabal where he had come for some domestic work. His wife also approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking help. The warrant officer got him released. Recently, he even applied for passport for which the police created hindrances. He again approached the court as no criminal case was pending against him. Balla and his wife Harpreet Kaur said they were under constant mental pressure and have sought the help of the human rights organisations for their protection.

Common land reclaimed from encroachers

Finally, after years of court proceedings, the gram panchayat of Toot village has been able to get the village common land vacated from the encroachers. This has been possible only with the efforts of Raghbir Singh, a former sarpanch of Toot village falling under the Patti subdivision. Raghbir Singh lodged a case in this regard and moved from pillar to post during the past more than seven years to bring the case to the final stage. The state government had assured the residents that all efforts would be made to get the common land vacated as this menace was causing losses worth crores of rupees to the state exchequer. Sandeep Kumar, DDPO said he had instructed the BDPO Patti to get the land be vacated soon. The land was meant for agricultural works but the situation had gone so worse that people were building houses on the common land but there was no check on them. This issue was prevalent in Tharu, Jalalabad, Chohla Sahib, Khadoor Sahib, Harike, Chabal, Khalra and many more areas where hundreds of acres of common land of these villages had been encroached since years.

Justice evades border area farmers

The Punjab Border Area Kisan Welfare Society (PBAKWS), a social organisation registered with the state government has not received any satisfactory reply from the district administration regarding an embezzlement of Rs 70 lakh. This amount was a part of the compensation released by the Union Government to be given to the border area farmers for the year of 2017. The compensation for the year 2017 was distributed among the concerned farmers in 2019. Raghbir Singh Bhangala, president of the PBAKWS, said the society had been representing the border farmers who had not been paid the compensation as yet. The district administration had sent the utilisation certificate (UC) to the state government for Rs 70 lakh amount too. The society had been trying its best to seek justice but their complaints fell on deaf ear.

— Contributed by Gurbaxpuri