Batala SSP initiates probe against AAP leader

Ravi Dhaliwal

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Batala, March 2

The Batala police district’s first ever woman SSP, Ashwini Gotyal, has earned kudos from residents for summoning senior AAP leader and chairman of Punsup Balbir Singh Pannu to her office. The SSP had received a complaint that despite not being entitled to a police escort vehicle, he had deployed one in his cavalcade and was also using a fake registration number plate on it.

Pannu skipped the summons yesterday but reached the police chief’s office today.

Residents say it is for the first time that an SSP-rank officer had dared to take the political class head-on. Pannu has been designated as the halqa incharge of the Fatehgarh Churian Assembly constituency. In the 2022 Assembly polls, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa had won the Fatehgarh Churian seat while Pannu was placed second.

The SSP has ordered a probe to be conducted by SP (Detective) Gurpreet Singh.

She also ensured that the police seized the ‘police gypsy’. It has been stationed at the Sadar police station for the past few days.

Sources say the registration number plate on Pannu’s escort vehicle is actually the number of a bullet motorcycle.

The police logo was removed when the vehicle arrived at the police station.

Meanwhile, Pannu said some people inimical to him had changed the number plate of his vehicle just to bring him a bad name. “The registration papers are in my name. Some miscreants changed the number plate. They are trying to stall my progress in the political arena,” he said.