Day after protesters-police clash, Kirti Kisan Union leader arrested

Tribune News Service 

Faridkot, December 8

A day after a clash between the police and members of the Punjab Students’ Union (PSU), the Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) and the Kirti Kisan Union (KKU), the Faridkot police on Sunday arrested Rajinder Singh, a senior functionary of the KKU and produced him before the duty magistrate. The court sent him to judicial custody till December 22.

Following the clash, the police registered a criminal case under Section 332, 353, 186, 283, 148 and 149 of the IPC against the protesters on Saturday. After Rajinder’s arrest, some women activists started a dharna in front of the city police station in Faridkot on Sunday. The police rounded them up to end the protest. They were released later.

  Demanding justice for a woman doctor who has accused a senior doctor in Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital (GGSMCH) of sexual harassment, the protesters have been holding a protest in front of the mini-secretariat for the past about one month. On Sunday, when they started a protest march towards the DC office and tried to remove barricades, they clashed the police.

 While the police resorted to water cannons, tear gas shells and lathis to push back the agitators, the latter used stones and sticks to counter the police. Students claimed that 15 of them got injured in the police action. Some police personnel also sustained injuries in the clash.

BKU flays lathicharge on protesters in Faridkot

Bathinda: Activists of the BKU Ekta Ugrahan today burnt the effigies of the state government and Faridkot district administration to lodge their protest over the police lathicharge against Punjab Students Union and Naujawan Bharat Sabha members in Faridkot yesterday.

Demanding justice for a woman doctor, who has accused a senior doctor in the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital of sexual harassment, the protesters had been sitting on a dharna in front of Faridkot mini-secretariat for over a month. 

Talking to Bathinda Tribune, BKU leader Shangara Singh Mann said their activists staged protest in villages like Jeond, Chak Fateh Singhwala, Jogewala, Kothaguru and Sivian in Bathinda district. He said on one hand the government is giving slogans like “Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao”, and on the other the number of sexual harassment cases against the women is on the rise. 

He said the government should act tough against the culprits so as to curb the increasing crime against women. He condemned the administration’s move to lathicharge the protesters who were seeking justice for the victim, adding that it would boost the morale of those indulging in crime while making women feel insecure. 

In her complaint, the woman doctor had alleged that since 2016 when she was selected for a postgraduate course in a college department, she was being harassed by her head of department (HoD).